Two Centuries of Chaos- Feedback for TL

[Krasno]

Sure it has some effects but not more than IOTL in other countries.

IOTL it caused a significant stir among the great powers, even victorious ones- there’s no telling how this’ll affect Russia.

The plans you mentioned were a few persons (usually governors) telling themselves "how great would it be if I was the leader of a country" I doubt they had that much support from the common people to do this.

It wasn’t really wanting to be leader of their country so much as it was wanting to be neutral from the conflict- that was the intention of “tri-insula”, after all, and the Californian governor only wanted to secede in the case of a civil war. This is how they’d gain support from the common people, even northerners- have the US lose worse at the beginning, have copperhead sentiments grow exponentially, and use that to fuck over the US even more.

Objectively they won't survive, neither the elites nor the common people have a reason to not join the US and since there would be even more US migrants coming there it's unlikely they will remain independent, they gained independence literally because two persons wanted them to, there is no reason for them to remain independent.

For one, the amount of US immigrants would be lessened, and secondly- I’m planning some fun in relation to demographics, which will make it so not everyone is an Anglo settler . And again, they’d be gaining support from the growing copperhead sympathies.

It won't particularly affect the fighting capabilities of the Union.

It might not affect them too much militarily, but it’s godawful for morale and it’ll put the leadership into a panic- what happens if the more important parts try and secede?

The US would very quickly sue for peace in a Trent War scenario, they know that they don't stand a chance.

That’s if the British put their full weight behind the war- which they don’t want to do. The US would very quickly overrun Canada in the case of war.

Meaning this organized resistance doesn't have time to build itself.

Even though I do agree Britain would win in the end, it would be a LONG term end. They’d have to wreck the US navy, send thousands of troops to the CS lines, and brutally gruel through a long war. That’s why I find diplomatic pressure to be more realistic- there’s only so far Britain is willing to go for the CS, and if they back out late they could be forced to give up on Dixie.

I meant the remaining territories of the Union weren't really on the verge of imploding and since the war is much shorter than OTL.

It’s at most shorter by two years- which is subject to change, I do think the CS can last and even thrive under a protracted war in some conditions- and the point is to make a situation in which the US DOES implode- political instability is fun!

And what do you want to achieve by Balkanizing the US? I don't like the US too much but I see it as unnecessary sadism.

I mean for one- it’s fun alternate history, there’s a lot I can do with the new states (like, imagine Norton actually becoming king of California- that’s fun, just an example though) and two- it’s not really done out of a dislike of the US (though of course I’m not exactly a fan) but more so to like, nerf them- their geographic and economic position gave them basically a perfect position, and I want there to be some real challenges in the Americas which don’t have a US that can enforce the Monroe doctrine.

That's a big if and I'm pretty sure there were more Northerners than Southerners in California.

It means they have a guaranteed support base- and not all northerners would be violently resisting secession, some would be copperheads and support it while others would be too apathetic to violently resist. Basically, this secession revolves around people not caring. (which would be a popular opinion, given as California already essentially governed itself and had little US assistance ATTP, so there won’t be too drastic a change in lifestyle)

The US won't just comply, if they do they stop the blockade meaning the South is much more powerful and accepting the demands would make them look weak,

It’s better than full out war with Britain- I was thinking of having the Trent affair be worse handled by the US side, making it a larger diplomatic incident and what Britain would call an “act of war” by the US- it was also in part caused by the US blockade, so Britain has the diplomatic advantage and reasoning to demand this from the US.

if GB doesn't have the guts to join the war for the CS then why would you comply?

Because you don’t want them to potentially- bluffing is a large part of diplomacy, if Britain pushes their weight around in the right way the US may be forced to comply- even if it makes them look weak (which could also help the secession movements, yay)

Also if you do comply you're basically letting GB fight a war with you without having to send soldiers since they are supplying the South.

Not exactly- they’re not giving it for free, the South is buying it with their now free cotton exports- Britain would say they have every right to do so as a neutral nation, and the US must be forced to comply- this is still Britain just selling them some weapons, it’s not equivalent to the British empire being fully at war with the US.

In the end GB would have to join if it wants to support the CS and imagine having to explain to Parliament why you sent an ultimatum to the US completely unprovoked

Unprovoked? Trent has something to say to you.

to defend slavery and that you have no idea how long the war lasts or how much resources you will have to use, GB didn't particularly want to go to war with the US.

I agree- that’s why I want it to be diplomatic pressure rather than all out war.

They'll sort it out, sure Germany will have an advantage over Russia but it won't be a crushing one.

It’ll be enough to count as an advantage, though.

It was a fight against communism, but if you're fine invading one nation because they're communist then you'll be fine with all of them, the Koreans are an oppressed people by the Japanese and the Chinese are brother-in-arms who were crucial in WW2 for your win against Japan, but you don't have problems killing either. And they still very much tried to make the USSR look as bad as possible, for example Animal Farm was published in 1945.

Orwell isn’t the US Government- but no, for one, Koreans and Chinese had to deal with racism, which made the public a lot less angry about fighting them- and two, the Soviets were seen as the main fighters against nazism, especially right after the war, the US heralded itself as the one who took down Japan.

You mean when Austria threatened to join the war on the Ottoman-French-British side in the Crimean War were they amicable? The Austrians always tried to contain Russia they never were amicable.

This was the first big shift in relations, nearly 50 years after the peace settlement. Before that, they cooperated on various issues- they were primary upholders of the status quo.

What do you mean by "the US has a superior production of motorized equipment", yes the US has a superior production of consumer goods but the Soviets had better tanks, better airplanes and were outnumbering you, the only thing you have is a superior navy. The US was fighting a war of luxury in WW2 (compared to the other participants) they basically never fought on their soil and the US citizens continued with their lives as if nothing happened, they aren't ready for total mobilization and going to die in Europe in the same way the USSR can do so.
Even if the US wants to continue the war, how can you win the war? The Soviets will crush you on land and you don't have the atomic bomb and even if you had it doesn't mean that you will manage to nuke the Soviets, the first atomic bombs weren't very practical.

The soviets have just had their industry mutilated by continuous war. The US production is in full swing- the Soviets in continued warfare get out produced.

After the Great Depression Japan was obsessed with the military, the civilian government would have a military but it wouldn't be as big and the civilian government wouldn't be as enthusiast at going for round two.

Even a civilian government would have large military spending- especially after losing a war, there was great fear in Japan of being colonized, a loss would only strengthen this.

Both sides will be as friendly as possible, but that doesn't mean that the UK has to pick a side, the UK isn't a vital part of the war as both Germany and Russia prefer not to buy things from GB,

Both of them are forced to to a degree, though, and Britain can chokehold even more necessary resources from being delivered.

Germany has to keep the UK friendly because if it were to join the war it would starve it to death whereas Russia will also be friendly because if GB joins Germany it's significantly harder to win and if it were to join on its side they would win 100%.

Both want to avoid Britain getting on the other side, because it means trouble for them- that means they’re going to try and win them over to theirs. They’ll be friendly, but they’ll still be asking for a concession from Britain.

Germany would try to get all that it needs from other countries than GB, metals from Scandinavia and Africa

Much of which could be stopped by a British blockade

oil from Indonesia, Mesopotamia and Gran Colombia...

Can also be blockaded in the case of British intervention.

though food would be a major problem for Germany since no country produces enough extra food to feed all of Germany.

I wouldn’t say that. They’d largely be fine if they’re not blockaded- it’s not like Germany has more food needs than Russia, and they aren’t going to eat the entire world’s food supply.

Because Gran Colombia still would need foreign investors, just as Venezuela did.

There still would be, if not even more than OTL.

The US could still ask some territories to the CP in exchange for their help during the war.

if they didn’t actually fight, that could come in one of the CP selling their American possessions to the US, rather than from Britain, who would be rapidly reinforcing Canada.

There wouldn't be much of a secessionist movement in the Pacific, most immigrants will be Northerners meaning that the ones who wanted independence will be outpopulated very soon and that is assuming they were a majority at the beginning.

Secession is just the foot in the door- convincing more people comes after. They’d have at least a somewhat strong support base in Copperheads and Southerners, and there’s a significant amount of people who are apathetic to secession, so they need to crush the loyalists and try to consolidate as a nation.

GB wouldn't see much point in trying to defend the Pacific, they will soon want to be a part of the Union

If they won independence from the Union and beat loyalists, that call would be more muted.

And trying to defend them from the US is a waste of resources, though you could have guerilla warfare with the Mormons if you really want something to happen

Mormons guerillas- that’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear lol. I feel there’s still a chance for their survival, though- maybe political turmoil or economic recession causes the US to look inwards or something- putting off the invasion long enough that the various states have time to grow their populations and militaries.

They wouldn't say you have x ships, they would say you cannot have more than 3 ships every 2 ships of Germany(IOTL the Brits themselves had a treaty like this where 5 ships for GB, 5 ships for the US, 3 ships for Japan...), the Germans need to be able to not be starved in the event of war with GB.

That was the naval treaty of Washington- it was a mutual agreement between the victorious naval powers, and a similar thing wouldn’t happen. You can probably squeeze something in, but nothing that will actually hamper British naval power- if the CP wants this treaty to go through, they can’t weaken British power significantly.

The CP can continue the war for much longer than Britain can, it's already exhausted by warfare and the US preparing for war is the final blow, if they decide to continue the fight they'll lose much more, GB could demand some concessions not to be made but they cannot prevent everything, Germany wants a guarantee that Britain won't be a threat anymore.

Germany will have to last the war out if they want that. More likely, Germany would accept having Britain be a strong contender to end the war and ensure their hegemony over Europe.

The main reason for the strike of 1916 was that food rations were lowered.

?? It was an anti war strike protesting the arrest of a socialist leader.

The Russians are conquerors but they aren't enemies for now, sure they won't be loved but if they leave them alone the Muslims won't see a point in dying for a vague independence (CA didn't rebel against the Russians and apart from the areas where there were Russians colonists relations were OK) and the Arabs could see it as an improvement from the Ottomans since they can follow the "true" path.

It depends on how Russia treats them- I’m thinking of having the Orthodox Church be much more involved in politics, as one of the last bastions of Russian Conservatism- which would make some fun political shenanigans between the Church and the elected government. Namely, I’m thinking of having significant church influence in Constantinople and the Levant- which could have some not so good implications for relations with Muslims.

They were nobles, not from important aristocrat families but still nobles.

Pestel came from a “dynasty” of postal service directors- not particularly noble sounding to me. Nor was there any mention of Muravyov’s lineage, all I could find was that he was a staff officer.

They still would've fallen, just with more time, the main thing colonies gave was prestige.

Yes, they would’ve, but they weren’t a significant drain in British resources like you say- at the very least, they more than made up for any expenses prior to WW2.

They never really fought for "Kenya", the Brits decided to give independence to "Kenya" and it was more "we don't want to be a colony" than "we want to fight for a nation whose borders created by some diplomat at Berlin".

There was a fight for independence, though- and if a politician from Kenya petitions Britain for independence, he did so on behalf of Kenya, not his local tribe or nation- which made independence come easier.

Ethiopia still was quite feudal.

It was far more centralized than the nations around it, though.

The Zulu Kingdom was also quite centralized and modern, yet it didn't last long.

It quite famously put up one of the best resistances against colonization- and even now has a strong national identity.

Ethiopia was lucky that at Berlin the Italians got this territory meaning that other powers didn't want to colonize it because it would anger the Italians.

They were lucky there, too, yes- but the reason the Somalis were successfully subjugated while the Ethiopians weren’t was their unity and centralization- the Italians got into Somalia by playing off the local leaders against each other, which they couldn’t in Ethiopia.

Without that they would be colonized, they weren't able to counter French demands for Laos for example.

Obviously they still wouldn’t be able to match against a great European power- but why do you think they kept independence when any other border dispute or buffer state between France and Britain ended up being colonized all the same?

Ships are much more practical than trains to transport goods, the reason they did this was because of glory and prestige.

If you’re transporting from the central parts of Africa, then railroads are certainly useful.

The French failed to take Mexico for years while the US was busy fighting itself, they won't be able to arrive to the CS soon, it would be giving up on Mexico for the CS which I'm not sure Nap III would do. And sure cotton of the CS is useful but joining a war to protect a state that defends slavery and not knowing how much resources or time will be needed to make the US comply aren't the most appealing prospect for GB.

They wouldn’t be full on joining a war- nor do they need to fully subjugate Mexico- a token force from France as volunteers as well as economic support would be the limit- especially since the support base of Nap III leaned confederate, and there was hopes for Dixie support in the war against Mexico once the Civil War was over.

They would still rely heavily on foreign investors, they wouldn't do much more than what Venezuela did, especially if there are internal divisions (and there will be).

Germany would be one such investor, interested in Gran Colombia’s oil- the elite of Venezuela might even support it, if they’re the ones profiting.

It wouldn't become a GP anytime soon if it wasn't for the Nazis (not intended to be a compliment).

I imagine there would be similar extreme measures in whichever radical force takes France.

Much more influence would come from the non-aristocrat officers and generals since they will have connections which are more important than the nobility.

How? The Russian middle class is nonexistent, and the peasant generals (when they do arise) would have very little in the way of political sway. The nobles stay influential because they’re the only ones with military theory training, and it’s going to take a while before the middle class and peasant generals become influential.

I'm no military expert but I'm pretty sure that a third of your soldiers who don't have a gun means that something went terribly wrong.

More bodies for Imperial Russian military strategy to throw away.

...

😅

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

IOTL it caused a significant stir among the great powers, even victorious ones- there’s no telling how this’ll affect Russia.

As much as the other GP (IOTL) at worst, but I do think it would be better than OTL(in the countries that won), they didn't suffer particularly harsh conditions (compared to other places) and they had to fight OE and AH meaning that there is no fighting on its soil and that the battles are less deadly than those a la Verdun for Germany, France and GB.

It wasn’t really wanting to be leader of their country so much as it was wanting to be neutral from the conflict- that was the intention of “tri-insults”, after all, and the Californian governor only wanted to secede in the case of a civil war. This is how they’d gain support from the common people, even northerners- have the US lose worse at the beginning, have copperhead sentiments grow exponentially, and use that to fuck over the US even more.

The common people in the US generally accepted the war to keep the Union, the initial stages of the ACW went very well for the CS, you can't make it go that much worse than OTL and once (and if) GB and France join the war it will quickly sue for peace since it is hopeless, they don't have more time or popular will than OTL, sure some might not want war but they won't search independence just for that reason, the idea is to stop the war not create a new one.

For one, the amount of US immigrants would be lessened, and secondly- I’m planning some fun in relation to demographics, which will make it so not everyone is an Anglo settler . And again, they’d be gaining support from the growing copperhead sympathies.

Those who strike against the war don't want to start a war by declaring independence, they don't want to secede from the US they want the US to stop fighting.

It might not affect them too much militarily, but it’s godawful for morale and it’ll put the leadership into a panic- what happens if the more important parts try and secede?

They won't panic over the Mormons, they're probably seen as already crazy.

That’s if the British put their full weight behind the war- which they don’t want to do. The US would very quickly overrun Canada in the case of war.

If the British don't want to participate then why are they threatening war? The only way to get the Union to do so is by threatening war which the US would know GB doesn't want to.
Militias are terrible for offensive operations, as shown in the ACW, an invasion of Canada while busy securing DC would be very bad for them, it would go worse than 1812.

Even though I do agree Britain would win in the end, it would be a LONG term end. They’d have to wreck the US navy, send thousands of troops to the CS lines, and brutally gruel through a long war. That’s why I find diplomatic pressure to be more realistic- there’s only so far Britain is willing to go for the CS, and if they back out late they could be forced to give up on Dixie.

How can you force the US to comply without threatening invasion? What will you say that will force them to comply? You can threaten to stop trading but that has negative effects on yourself and will damage you which you want to avoid; also that could convince the US to declare war which you want to avoid.

It’s at most shorter by two years- which is subject to change, I do think the CS can last and even thrive under a protracted war in some conditions- and the point is to make a situation in which the US DOES implode- political instability is fun!

Well that implosion won't last, Tri-Insula is more dependent on the US than the US is on New York; the Pacific states have almost no way of surviving more than 20 years in a very positive scenario and the Mormons are random people in the middle of the Desert (though they could last a while to put down due to their isolated nature). The CS is the only one who really has a chance to remain independent.
And even assuming the Pacific States survives that'll mean that the US joins the war immediately to get it back, not really helping the Entente since it is 5 times more powerful then the PS and CS combined.

I mean for one- it’s fun alternate history, there’s a lot I can do with the new states (like, imagine Norton actually becoming king of California- that’s fun, just an example though) and two- it’s not really done out of a dislike of the US (though of course I’m not exactly a fan) but more so to like, nerf them- their geographic and economic position gave them basically a perfect position, and I want there to be some real challenges in the Americas which don’t have a US that can enforce the Monroe doctrine.

Well they'll manage the Monroe Doctrine (an imperfect one but they would still be the dominant power) after the war unless you create (an)other important power(s) in the Americas (honestly I've always liked the idea of Brazil becoming a GP(I think Brazil would join the CP ITTL because it also wants to remove British influence and because Argentina is a UK puppet but after the war it and the US would be rivals), but there could be other ones) who would compete with the US for control and ally with the pre-existing anti-US faction.

It means they have a guaranteed support base- and not all northerners would be violently resisting secession, some would be copperheads and support it while others would be too apathetic to violently resist. Basically, this secession revolves around people not caring. (which would be a popular opinion, given as California already essentially governed itself and had little US assistance ATTP, so there won’t be too drastic a change in lifestyle)

A little bit of plot armor is needed to make it work.

It’s better than full out war with Britain- I was thinking of having the Trent affair be worse handled by the US side, making it a larger diplomatic incident and what Britain would call an “act of war” by the US- it was also in part caused by the US blockade, so Britain has the diplomatic advantage and reasoning to demand this from the US.

The problem is that the US knows that GB isn't 100% sure about going to war and that many will oppose it and that if you stop the blockade you've essentially guaranteed to stalemate the war or have to suffer much, MUCH more to win and being manhandled by Britain would be a big blow to morale.

Because you don’t want them to potentially- bluffing is a large part of diplomacy, if Britain pushes their weight around in the right way the US may be forced to comply- even if it makes them look weak (which could also help the secession movements, yay)

But the US can call the bluff and it can bluff itself.

Not exactly- they’re not giving it for free, the South is buying it with their now free cotton exports- Britain would say they have every right to do so as a neutral nation, and the US must be forced to comply- this is still Britain just selling them some weapons, it’s not equivalent to the British empire being fully at war with the US.

France and GB would certainly use the absence of a blockade to supply the South and you have no guarantees that Britain won't declare war on you anyways and you are allowing the CS to use all of its resources, with revenues from cotton and trade the CS has much stronger war effort.

Unprovoked? Trent has something to say to you.

Trent is the casus belli but without all of the rest that has happened it wouldn't be near enough to cause a war.

I agree- that’s why I want it to be diplomatic pressure rather than all out war.

You are walking on the edge.

It’ll be enough to count as an advantage, though.

Russia has many significant advantages over Germany.

This was the first big shift in relations, nearly 50 years after the peace settlement. Before that, they cooperated on various issues- they were primary upholders of the status quo.

I would disagree with that, the main upholder of the status quo was Britain who considered Austria to be a key partner for achieving a stable Europe; Russia was more keen on going to war with the Ottomans and absolutely destroying the status quo.

The soviets have just had their industry mutilated by continuous war. The US production is in full swing- the Soviets in continued warfare get out produced.

The Soviets moved most of their industries further than the Urals, how do you think they armed the biggest army in Europe?
The US doesn't have an advantage, most of their industries are producing consumer goods and if you were to mobilize everyone for a serious war (serious in the sense that the US wasn't waging a war of survival like the USSR which meant they mobilized less than them) on the continent your production would drop a lot, also your production is of lower quality than the Soviets in literally everything related to warfare, never underestimate the state who was preparing for war since its creation.

Even a civilian government would have large military spending- especially after losing a war, there was great fear in Japan of being colonized, a loss would only strengthen this.

It's kind of ironic since to not be colonized you accepted to be a junior partner of Britain, they would have a military spending but I doubt as much as if the military is outright controlling the government.

Both of them are forced to to a degree, though, and Britain can chokehold even more necessary resources from being delivered.

For Germany yes, for Russia much less you know rubber can make quite some adventures if it is needed (passing by the US to Alaska and then be transported from Kamchatka to the Trans-Siberian railway).

Both want to avoid Britain getting on the other side, because it means trouble for them- that means they’re going to try and win them over to theirs. They’ll be friendly, but they’ll still be asking for a concession from Britain.

What do you mean by "they will be asking concessions from Britain"? They won't do that when they need its help, they would in the peace deal but not at that moment, it would be very counter-productive.

Much of which could be stopped by a British blockade

Those from Africa yes, those from Scandinavia no, that was the main supply of the Nazis in WW2.

I wouldn’t say that. They’d largely be fine if they’re not blockaded- it’s not like Germany has more food needs than Russia, and they aren’t going to eat the entire world’s food supply.

You still need to find quite a lot of food (you have to find a major producer of food that isn't Russia, France, GB or the US) and pay for it, GB was the economical center of the world before WW1 but it didn't prevent them from almost bankrupting after 3 years of fighting.

There still would be, if not even more than OTL.

But not because Gran Colombia still exists, it would actually make it harder for investments since the government of Gran Colombia will constantly have to balance things between Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama.

if they didn’t actually fight, that could come in one of the CP selling their American possessions to the US, rather than from Britain, who would be rapidly reinforcing Canada.

At that point Britain is lost, you can't ask territories from your allies and the only ones who have are Russia and Spain, the first might but it would be much easier to buy BC.

Secession is just the foot in the door- convincing more people comes after. They’d have at least a somewhat strong support base in Copperheads and Southerners, and there’s a significant amount of people who are apathetic to secession, so they need to crush the loyalists and try to consolidate as a nation.

The most likely scenario would be it returning in the Union at some point and having the Pacific state sort of ruins your TL since the US joins the war very soon, meaning the war is even more one-sided than it already was.

If they won independence from the Union and beat loyalists, that call would be more muted.

Gb doesn't have a reason to waste resources on a nation that won't survive for long, it's just a waste of resources, better is to send them to the South so he can fight better, also how do the slave states that fought for the Union end up in the peace deal.

Mormons guerillas- that’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear lol. I feel there’s still a chance for their survival, though- maybe political turmoil or economic recession causes the US to look inwards or something- putting off the invasion long enough that the various states have time to grow their populations and militaries.

Why not? You're in the middle of nowhere, that's the ideal place to fight guerilla warfare (after Vietnamese jungles).

That was the naval treaty of Washington- it was a mutual agreement between the victorious naval powers, and a similar thing wouldn’t happen. You can probably squeeze something in, but nothing that will actually hamper British naval power- if the CP wants this treaty to go through, they can’t weaken British power significantly.

You need to send the message: "Next time we won't be so lenient, don't let there be a next time."

Germany will have to last the war out if they want that. More likely, Germany would accept having Britain be a strong contender to end the war and ensure their hegemony over Europe.

You can't let the British completely without problems, they need to not oppose you again.

?? It was an anti war strike protesting the arrest of a socialist leader.

One of the things war brought with it was food shortages and the sufferance they had at that point would also be there when they fight Russia.

It depends on how Russia treats them- I’m thinking of having the Orthodox Church be much more involved in politics, as one of the last bastions of Russian Conservatism- which would make some fun political shenanigans between the Church and the elected government. Namely, I’m thinking of having significant church influence in Constantinople and the Levant- which could have some not so good implications for relations with Muslims.

Lebanon will be fine since it is Christian, Syria will be OK there will be some problems but not that much, Palestine will be a very troubled place since those who came with Zionism (there were already some Jews and some had came before Britain invited them), Muslims and Russians will be in the same place and the Orthodox Church would be like "Our Lord wants us to conquer (colonize) the Holy Land from the infidels".

Pestel came from a “dynasty” of postal service directors- not particularly noble sounding to me. Nor was there any mention of Muravyov’s lineage, all I could find was that he was a staff officer.

Pestel came from a Lutheran family of Saxon descent that had settled in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great.[1] His great-grandfather, grandfather, father and uncle had all successively served as director of Moscow's postal mail service, forming a dynasty of sorts. His father Ivan (1765—1843) continued to work his way up through the political bureaucracy to become Governor-General of Siberia from 1806 to 1821 living in St-Petersburg. But because of Speransky Ivan Pestel and his governor in Irkutsk Nikolai Treskin were accused in bribery and in the corrupt regime in Siberia and resigned with shame.[2][3]

Never underestimate the power of bureaucracy, that's how you get to real power.
Muravyov also was part of the nobility, small nobility but still nobility.

It quite famously put up one of the best resistances against colonization- and even now has a strong national identity.


They were lucky there, too, yes- but the reason the Somalis were successfully subjugated while the Ethiopians weren’t was their unity and centralization- the Italians got into Somalia by playing off the local leaders against each other, which they couldn’t in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia wouldn't survive had it been a colony of say Germany.

Obviously they still wouldn’t be able to match against a great European power- but why do you think they kept independence when any other border dispute or buffer state between France and Britain ended up being colonized all the same?

Which other places? Africa was divided in Berlin before anybody knew anything about these places, Siam had the advantage of being there while there were tensions between the British and French and there is desert between Chad and Sudan, not much not infuence.

They wouldn’t be full on joining a war- nor do they need to fully subjugate Mexico- a token force from France as volunteers as well as economic support would be the limit- especially since the support base of Nap III leaned confederate, and there was hopes for Dixie support in the war against Mexico once the Civil War was over.

I don't think it would send a force to the Confederacy, that would be violating US territory if you don't recognize the Confederacy (if you do that is a declaration of war) so it would be limited to economic and material support.

Germany would be one such investor, interested in Gran Colombia’s oil- the elite of Venezuela might even support it, if they’re the ones profiting.

It would be Gran Colombia in general that profits, not Venezuela specifically.

I imagine there would be similar extreme measures in whichever radical force takes France.

Gambling your entire nation a few times isn't something anyone except for Hitler would do.

How? The Russian middle class is nonexistent, and the peasant generals (when they do arise) would have very little in the way of political sway. The nobles stay influential because they’re the only ones with military theory training, and it’s going to take a while before the middle class and peasant generals become influential.

Industrial magnates would replace the aristocracy and a middle class would build itself with time.

 

[Krasno]

As much as the other GP (IOTL) at worst, but I do think it would be better than OTL(in the countries that won), they didn't suffer particularly harsh conditions (compared to other places) and they had to fight OE and AH meaning that there is no fighting on its soil and that the battles are less deadly than those a la Verdun for Germany, France and GB.

I don’t know- I don’t think it’s ever going to be “the same” for Russia as it is in Western Europe- not to say the socialists to take power, but I can imagine they have a different effect.

The common people in the US generally accepted the war to keep the Union, the initial stages of the ACW went very well for the CS, you can't make it go that much worse than OTL and once (and if) GB and France join the war it will quickly sue for peace since it is hopeless, they don't have more time or popular will than OTL, sure some might not want war but they won't search independence just for that reason, the idea is to stop the war not create a new one.

My plan is more so for the US to lose bloodier, more, and longer- enough so that there’s a significant antiwar movement among the common people (which grew and and fell dependent on the decisive battles). When there’s that, secessionists can get their foot out the door- if nothing else through promises of “no more war”. There would still be significant pushback at home, and a US response, but it gets their foot through the door- which is all that’s needed for alternate history, the exact reasons for their survival or fall come later.

Those who strike against the war don't want to start a war by declaring independence, they don't want to secede from the US they want the US to stop fighting.

But if the US shows it’s not willing to do that, at the very least people could be convinced that secession means peace. Kind of similar to Russia in WW1- a socialist revolution meant civil war, inevitably, but Lenin rallied the people through promises of peace on the front- once you’ve built a support base, you have a lot more breathing room, even if you don’t fulfill all your promises.

They won't panic over the Mormons, they're probably seen as already crazy.

I mean, it’s bad for morale- if you’re an average citizen in the US and hear about all these revolts one after the other, even if you don’t know or care about the place or people, there’s a good chance you start to feel the situation is hopeless.

If the British don't want to participate then why are they threatening war? The only way to get the Union to do so is by threatening war which the US would know GB doesn't want to.

Does the US know? They know the UK has economic interests in the CS- they may not fully believe the UK’s willingness to join, but do they want to risk it? Britain wouldn’t be so brash as to actually declare war, but they’re also the world’s foremost empire- they’d likely try to present some compromise deal that benefits their interests. The rough timeline would be: worse handled Trent affair> Britain calls this an act of war, demands end of embargo as insurance> negotiations begin, Britain proposes end of embargo in exchange for Britain not selling tools of war to the CSA> US reluctantly agrees, saves some face (but still looks weak) due to “compromise” agreement> CSA enjoys significant income from cotton exports, helps to deal with food issue- Britain and France likely find some workaround to give the CS arms anyway, but even without it a lot of their issues are remedied now.

Militias are terrible for offensive operations, as shown in the ACW, an invasion of Canada while busy securing DC would be very bad for them, it would go worse than 1812.

They had very few soldiers in Canada at this time- and the US was wary of Britain otl, they had significant défenses built up in the north. They also have a lot of very eager Irishmen ready to punt the British.

How can you force the US to comply without threatening invasion? What will you say that will force them to comply?

“You have broken international law and made an offense against Britain. We do not want war, but we require X to be assured that future such incidents do not occur.”

There’s plenty of ways Britain can bluff- the US isn’t all knowing- they may not fully believe Britain is ready for war, but that’s a very risky choice- British entry and blockade will mean economic devastation for the US, so they need to act carefully no matter what. Of course, the US COULD call Britain’s bluff- but it’s not ASB to say that they don’t, and that’s what happens ITTL.

You can threaten to stop trading but that has negative effects on yourself and will damage you which you want to avoid; also that could convince the US to declare war which you want to avoid.

The US has diplomatic and international obligations it needs to be careful of, too- the US wants war as little as Britain does.

Well that implosion won't last, Tri-Insula is more dependent on the US than the US is on New York;

I mentioned that independent NYC wouldn’t last- but I wouldn’t say NYC is more dependent on the US- for food, maybe, but this is before the income tax, most of the US’ federal income comes from tariffs, and their largest port and a significant form of income is NYC- that’s the point of their secession, it fucks up the US economy and likely contributes to them coming to negotiate with the CS. Tri-insula either gets crushed after at most a month or two, whether it be by US boots or internal collapse.

the Pacific states have almost no way of surviving more than 20 years in a very positive scenario

San Francisco was a relatively important port in the pacific- if they make some smart dealings with foreign powers they could survive as a minor state.

and the Mormons are random people in the middle of the Desert (though they could last a while to put down due to their isolated nature).

They definitely wouldn’t be rich, but I was thinking of them closely cooperating with California as a sort of symbiotic relationship- the Mormons try and hold the line against the US, and California allows Deseret easier access to their ports and subsidies form the Californian economy.

The CS is the only one who really has a chance to remain independent.

They’re definitely the most consolidated state, yes.

And even assuming the Pacific States survives that'll mean that the US joins the war immediately to get it back, not really helping the Entente since it is 5 times more powerful then the PS and CS combined.

By the time of WW1, California would’ve developed a stronger national identity and a more robust economy/population- but yeah, the US would be out for blood, and I’ll try to find a remedy for that.

Well they'll manage the Monroe Doctrine (an imperfect one but they would still be the dominant power) after the war unless you create (an)other important power(s) in the Americas (honestly I've always liked the idea of Brazil becoming a GP(I think Brazil would join the CP ITTL because it also wants to remove British influence and because Argentina is a UK puppet but after the war it and the US would be rivals), but there could be other ones) who would compete with the US for control and ally with the pre-existing anti-US faction.

A powerful Brazil is interesting- combined with the more robust Colombia and Peru-Bolivia, the US doesn’t have as much justification “protecting small nations” since everyone is a regional power in their own right. I know very little about Brazilian history, though, so I’m gonna have to do a lot more reading on that lol

A little bit of plot armor is needed to make it work.

True, but stranger things have happened OTL- as long as something isn’t totally ASB, and I can find a plausible explanation, a nation getting weirdly lucky isn’t impossible- I mean, it’s how the Nazis survived as long as they did, after all.

The problem is that the US knows that GB isn't 100% sure about going to war and that many will oppose it and that if you stop the blockade you've essentially guaranteed to stalemate the war or have to suffer much, MUCH more to win and being manhandled by Britain would be a big blow to morale.

But the problem is that the US isn’t sure- if it came down between choosing to strengthen the CS and bringing Britain into the war, at least the CS is still an unstable slave nation- Britain is the worlds empire- so the US, even if they think Britain is bluffing, wouldn’t just disregard their threats.

But the US can call the bluff and it can bluff itself.

But that’s not guaranteed. I wouldn’t say the US is MORE likely to call Britains bluff- it’s a possibility, but it’s equally plausible to see the US try and find a compromise deal with the UK.

France and GB would certainly use the absence of a blockade to supply the South

The US could stipulate a ban on military arms supplies to the CS as part of the agreement to end the blockade- they both may still try to do it, but if they do, they’d be forced to do so in secret or through back channels, which are a lot less convenient and efficient.

and you have no guarantees that Britain won't declare war on you anyways

You never have a guarantee of anything, but the agreement on the end of the blockade would likely be guarantee enough- the US at least knows that they have the advantage over the UK in the short term and can seriously hassle the British economy, even if they eventually lose, so they can somewhat be assured that one treaty to Britains advantage is all they need. Also, breaking the agreement (which no doubt would have included a clause of nonaggression) would make Britains diplomatic credibility null.

and you are allowing the CS to use all of its resources, with revenues from cotton and trade the CS has much stronger war effort.

Better that than a war with Britain, which likely would’ve been presented as the only alternative to them. At least with a stronger CS the US still believes in a chance of longterm victory.

Trent is the casus belli but without all of the rest that has happened it wouldn't be near enough to cause a war.

What do you mean?

You are walking on the edge.

Threats and compromise is the way of diplomacy- war isn’t the only thing that makes things happen.

Russia has many significant advantages over Germany.

Not enough to be overwhelming, though.

I would disagree with that, the main upholder of the status quo was Britain who considered Austria to be a key partner for achieving a stable Europe; Russia was more keen on going to war with the Ottomans and absolutely destroying the status quo.

The “status quo” for Russia and Austria was putting down liberal reformists like that of the French Revolution.

The Soviets moved most of their industries further than the Urals, how do you think they armed the biggest army in Europe?

They still had a heavily damaged industrial base, though- there’s a reason they basically stripped east Germany clean.

The US doesn't have an advantage, most of their industries are producing consumer goods

By the end of WW2? What?

and if you were to mobilize everyone for a serious war (serious in the sense that the US wasn't waging a war of survival like the USSR which meant they mobilized less than them) on the continent your production would drop a lot,

The US wouldn’t NEED to do that like the USSR- they’re not being attacked on their mainland, their infrastructure and industry and people are all utterly safe- the most that’d happen is increased conscription, which while unpopular wouldnt be critical.

also your production is of lower quality than the Soviets in literally everything related to warfare,

Quantity has a quality all its own- the Soviets may produce better, and even mass produced stuff, but the US has a greater capacity for mass production than the Soviets at this time.

never underestimate the state who was preparing for war since its creation.

The US is the centre of global capitalism- the Soviet Union was a revolutionary state, and made great leaps of its own, but the US is the centre of the system which has ruled the war for a century at this point.

It's kind of ironic since to not be colonized you accepted to be a junior partner of Britain,

I do imagine there’d be a significant anti-British faction in Japan pointing out exactly this lol

they would have a military spending but I doubt as much as if the military is outright controlling the government.

I think they’d be more capped by their worsened economy than their willingness to spend

For Germany yes, for Russia much less you know rubber can make quite some adventures if it is needed (passing by the US to Alaska and then be transported from Kamchatka to the Trans-Siberian railway).

Japan can still reach that far- but they’d likely target them before they got there , down in Southeast Asia.

What do you mean by "they will be asking concessions from Britain"? They won't do that when they need its help, they would in the peace deal but not at that moment, it would be very counter-productive.

Concessions as in help in the war.

Those from Africa yes, those from Scandinavia no, that was the main supply of the Nazis in WW2.

Scandinavia alone won’t solve their resource problems.

You still need to find quite a lot of food (you have to find a major producer of food that isn't Russia, France, GB or the US) and pay for it, GB was the economical center of the world before WW1 but it didn't prevent them from almost bankrupting after 3 years of fighting.

I mean, GB is still an option- but I imagine with all of Mittleafrika they’re also gaining a lot of arable land.

But not because Gran Colombia still exists, it would actually make it harder for investments since the government of Gran Colombia will constantly have to balance things between Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Panama.

True. Maybe Gran Colombia can succeed where the US failed, though- perhaps a rebellious Venezuela is put down, leading to a more centralized Gran Colombia.

At that point Britain is lost, you can't ask territories from your allies and the only ones who have are Russia and Spain, the first might but it would be much easier to buy BC.

I guess- it’d be a hard sell to Britain, though. Even if they’re strapped for Cash, Vancouver is an important port.

The most likely scenario would be it returning in the Union at some point and having the Pacific state sort of ruins your TL since the US joins the war very soon, meaning the war is even more one-sided than it already was.

Hm. Maybe the US peacefully negotiates their return postwar, but with greater autonomy? Like, they return to the US, but Deseret becomes a semi-independent “commonwealth of Deseret” (with similar things happening in California and Oregon, potentially some free city situation in NYC) that spell disaster for the US further down the line?

Gb doesn't have a reason to waste resources on a nation that won't survive for long, it's just a waste of resources, better is to send them to the South so he can fight better,

I guess, yeah.

also how do the slave states that fought for the Union end up in the peace deal.

That’s tough. I was thinking of a few more of them joining the CS (like Kentucky) but generally I imagine they are forced to give up slavery- maybe the KKK form here as a sort of pro-confederate militias in the northern slave states?

Why not? You're in the middle of nowhere, that's the ideal place to fight guerilla warfare (after Vietnamese jungles).

And with low infrastructure- yeah, the US military is in for hell.

You need to send the message: "Next time we won't be so lenient, don't let there be a next time."

The cp are certainly the ones with the larger advantage, but they aren’t lording over Britain- Britain is an equal player at the negotiations, and they’re not going to accept any overreaching stipulations.

You can't let the British completely without problems, they need to not oppose you again.

They’ll have problems no matter what- Germany has already carved its way into the sun, and the war reparations placed on Britain will already be draining them economically. Britain won’t be able to challenge Germany in war again- but they aren’t going to be completely taken down a peg like France is.

One of the things war brought with it was food shortages and the sufferance they had at that point would also be there when they fight Russia.

But this was a strike that happened in protest of a political action- it had no relation to food, and it would’ve happened even if they had full bellies.

Lebanon will be fine since it is Christian,

Not all of it, but yea, they’d be the easiest to administer.

Syria will be OK there will be some problems but not that much,

That’s if they decide to keep it.

Palestine will be a very troubled place since those who came with Zionism (there were already some Jews and some had came before Britain invited them),

I dread to think of how Zionism and Russian antisemitism interact. Palestine is a troubled place as always, it seems- but they’d also likely be the largest target of the Church’s “christianisation”.

Muslims and Russians will be in the same place and the Orthodox Church would be like "Our Lord wants us to conquer (colonize) the Holy Land from the infidels".

It wont be fun, that’s for sure.

Never underestimate the power of bureaucracy, that's how you get to real power.

They weren’t nobles, though.

Muravyov also was part of the nobility, small nobility but still nobility.

Small nobility was essentially all Russia had for a middle class.

Ethiopia wouldn't survive had it been a colony of say Germany.

It would’ve been a similar situation to the zulus- they would put up significantly more resistance than their neighbours due to their centralized nature.

Which other places? Africa was divided in Berlin before anybody knew anything about these places, Siam had the advantage of being there while there were tensions between the British and French and there is desert between Chad and Sudan, not much not infuence.

The conference at Berlin decided the conflicts between Britain and France- and their disputed areas all became areas anyway. Thailand survived longer because it modernized its political system after they were beginning to be carved up.

I don't think it would send a force to the Confederacy, that would be violating US territory if you don't recognize the Confederacy (if you do that is a declaration of war) so it would be limited to economic and material support.

An official French force? Sir, are you mad? This is simply a collection of god-fearing Frenchmen here of their own volition to protect the states rights of noble Dixieland! A ruse? Why, our righteous Napoleon III would NEVER dream of such underhanded tactics.

It would be Gran Colombia in general that profits, not Venezuela specifically.

The Venezuelan ELITE would be profiting a lot more, though.

Gambling your entire nation a few times isn't something anyone except for Hitler would do.

La radicalisme- c'est tout les mêmes.

Industrial magnates would replace the aristocracy and a middle class would build itself with time.

That’s a veeeeery slow process, and Russia needs generals now.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

I don’t know- I don’t think it’s ever going to be “the same” for Russia as it is in Western Europe- not to say the socialists to take power, but I can imagine they have a different effect.

This war was significantly less destructive than it was OTL in France or GB, there will be some issues however we still have an absolute monarchy or at worst something like Imperial Germany which could help stabilize the country.

My plan is more so for the US to lose bloodier, more, and longer- enough so that there’s a significant antiwar movement among the common people (which grew and and fell dependent on the decisive battles). When there’s that, secessionists can get their foot out the door- if nothing else through promises of “no more war”. There would still be significant pushback at home, and a US response, but it gets their foot through the door- which is all that’s needed for alternate history, the exact reasons for their survival or fall come later.

Depends on who, the CS certainly manages but I imagine that the US would try to keep California to have a morale boost.

But if the US shows it’s not willing to do that, at the very least people could be convinced that secession means peace. Kind of similar to Russia in WW1- a socialist revolution meant civil war, inevitably, but Lenin rallied the people through promises of peace on the front- once you’ve built a support base, you have a lot more breathing room, even if you don’t fulfill all your promises.

No cooperhead will be able to pull a Lenin and pulling a Lenin isn't secession, it's a change of government but Ohio and New York won't secede because of the war, at worst they'll strike until the war is over.

Does the US know? They know the UK has economic interests in the CS- they may not fully believe the UK’s willingness to join, but do they want to risk it? Britain wouldn’t be so brash as to actually declare war, but they’re also the world’s foremost empire- they’d likely try to present some compromise deal that benefits their interests. The rough timeline would be: worse handled Trent affair> Britain calls this an act of war, demands end of embargo as insurance> negotiations begin, Britain proposes end of embargo in exchange for Britain not selling tools of war to the CSA> US reluctantly agrees, saves some face (but still looks weak) due to “compromise” agreement> CSA enjoys significant income from cotton exports, helps to deal with food issue- Britain and France likely find some workaround to give the CS arms anyway, but even without it a lot of their issues are remedied now.

The US knows that accepting this would be extremely dangerous, you have no way of controlling that no weapons are transported and you're already struggling to secure DC with the blockade, imagine without, it means throwing the war out of the window certainly so you might as well call the bluff.

They had very few soldiers in Canada at this time- and the US was wary of Britain otl, they had significant défenses built up in the north. They also have a lot of very eager Irishmen ready to punt the British.

Using the Irishmen would be counter-productive since they wouldn't be trained for warfare, it's even worse than a militia; the problem isn't about how many soldiers Canada has, the problem is how many soldiers can the US distract for another front and the quality of these troops (which would be extremely low).

There’s plenty of ways Britain can bluff- the US isn’t all knowing- they may not fully believe Britain is ready for war, but that’s a very risky choice- British entry and blockade will mean economic devastation for the US, so they need to act carefully no matter what. Of course, the US COULD call Britain’s bluff- but it’s not ASB to say that they don’t, and that’s what happens ITTL.

The problem is that accepting Britain's demands means the CS is very likely to win and the US knows that, if there is 50-50 chance for Britain to join it's better than the 20-80 chance you win if the CS isn't blockaded and GB and France would be able to supply the CS on top of it.

I mentioned that independent NYC wouldn’t last- but I wouldn’t say NYC is more dependent on the US- for food, maybe, but this is before the income tax, most of the US’ federal income comes from tariffs, and their largest port and a significant form of income is NYC- that’s the point of their secession, it fucks up the US economy and likely contributes to them coming to negotiate with the CS. Tri-insula either gets crushed after at most a month or two, whether it be by US boots or internal collapse.

I doubt it would try to secede, the protests were anti-war or for higher wages not to have an independent country. And NYC has no way of assembling a proper army, the police would be enough to maintain control over the city.

San Francisco was a relatively important port in the pacific- if they make some smart dealings with foreign powers they could survive as a minor state.

The Pacific isn't the most important part of of maritime trade and there are other ports, that won't save it.

They definitely wouldn’t be rich, but I was thinking of them closely cooperating with California as a sort of symbiotic relationship- the Mormons try and hold the line against the US, and California allows Deseret easier access to their ports and subsidies form the Californian economy.

Deseret won't really prevent armies from reaching California since what they are doing is preventing full US control of the territory but they cannot oppose a large army sent by the Union to re-conquer California, they can only slow it down.

By the time of WW1, California would’ve developed a stronger national identity and a more robust economy/population- but yeah, the US would be out for blood, and I’ll try to find a remedy for that.

The most likely migrants in California will be US citizens, it would develop a separate identity but IMO it will be like Texas.

A powerful Brazil is interesting- combined with the more robust Colombia and Peru-Bolivia, the US doesn’t have as much justification “protecting small nations” since everyone is a regional power in their own right. I know very little about Brazilian history, though, so I’m gonna have to do a lot more reading on that lol

1. Peru-Bolivia, Central America and Gran Colombia wouldn't be very stable, they both collapsed OTL and to keep them together there would have to be a lot of compromises (similar to the compromises between the slave and free states in the US) and this will cause significant instability which will prevent changes.
2. The states' economies are still mostly based on selling raw materials (especially agricultural products) and there is an elite which is already formed which prevents changes thanks to its influence (one of the main reasons why Brazil is so popular to become a GP is because it was an empire for a while which would allow it to prosper more easily thanks to the central figure)
3. If everyone is a regional power then they're not a regional power anymore, it will be normal at that point.

True, but stranger things have happened OTL- as long as something isn’t totally ASB, and I can find a plausible explanation, a nation getting weirdly lucky isn’t impossible- I mean, it’s how the Nazis survived as long as they did, after all.

Apart from the Nazis and Conquistadors there weren't many cases of pure plot armor.

But the problem is that the US isn’t sure- if it came down between choosing to strengthen the CS and bringing Britain into the war, at least the CS is still an unstable slave nation- Britain is the worlds empire- so the US, even if they think Britain is bluffing, wouldn’t just disregard their threats.

But Britain doesn't join 100% whereas not blockading helps the CS 100%, bot are risky but I think it's better to call Britain's bluff since without the blockade the CS is likely to succeed in seceding.

The US could stipulate a ban on military arms supplies to the CS as part of the agreement to end the blockade- they both may still try to do it, but if they do, they’d be forced to do so in secret or through back channels, which are a lot less convenient and efficient.

There are a lot of ways to avoid it and the US cannot control what ships transport, even without weapons the biggest problem of the South was food which is solved ITTL as cotton becomes useful now.

Better that than a war with Britain, which likely would’ve been presented as the only alternative to them. At least with a stronger CS the US still believes in a chance of longterm victory.

I would doubt that, at the moment of the Trent incident the Civil war had started relatively recently and the front was a stalemate due to bad weather, at that moment you couldn't be sure about US victory since a stalemate is enough to secede for the Confederacy.

What do you mean?

Had the UK been truly neutral, the Trent affair would've been completely irrelevant.

Not enough to be overwhelming, though.

After a few years (3-4 years) Germany will run out of food and money, meanwhile Russia would still be in a position to continue the war and the German army being so outnumbered would suffer a lot of defeats.

The “status quo” for Russia and Austria was putting down liberal reformists like that of the French Revolution.

That status quo yes but they weren't allies on everything except liberals.

They still had a heavily damaged industrial base, though- there’s a reason they basically stripped east Germany clean.

It was largely enough for warfare, they didn't produce anything else but that's beyond the point.

By the end of WW2? What?

I'm not sure how much but the US wasn't fighting all on war like the USSR was, conditions of living inside the US weren't particularly affected; they would need absolute total war to win and even then they're likely to lose.

The US wouldn’t NEED to do that like the USSR- they’re not being attacked on their mainland, their infrastructure and industry and people are all utterly safe- the most that’d happen is increased conscription, which while unpopular wouldnt be critical.

UK and US are outnumbered 2 to 1 by the USSR, they have no way of winning while the Soviet army is of better quality and is vastly outnumbering them. Operation Unthinkable planned to use German soldiers (there were nowhere near enough to fight the Soviets even then) to fight the Soviets but this would mean that the population of Eastern Europe would support the Soviets.

Quantity has a quality all its own- the Soviets may produce better, and even mass produced stuff, but the US has a greater capacity for mass production than the Soviets at this time.

The US produced less war related stuff than the Soviets, it had a bigger industrial output overall but talking only about heavy industry the Soviets were better and the US doesn't have ways to levy more soldiers than the USSR the latter had 40 million people more so mass production is useless.

The US is the centre of global capitalism- the Soviet Union was a revolutionary state, and made great leaps of its own, but the US is the centre of the system which has ruled the war for a century at this point.

I wouldn't define the Soviet Union as revolutionary, it was totalitarian.
And that helps the Soviet, Truman and Churchill would have to find a very good reason to convince their population to go to die against the Soviets whereas what Stalin says is not put into discussion by anyone.

I do imagine there’d be a significant anti-British faction in Japan pointing out exactly this lol

The question is who? Both the nationalist generals and the pacifists would point that, since the first consider their great nation blocked by this submission to Britain and the second think that it was because of Britain that they had to suffer in war.

I think they’d be more capped by their worsened economy than their willingness to spend

Their economy would do better, Japan was destroyed by the Wall Street Crash in 1929 since most of its trade was with the US, here this doesn't happen meaning that ultra-nationalism is less likely to overtake the generals (AFAIK the population supported the things the Japanese military did because it was the only thing that was still great despite the crisis).

Japan can still reach that far- but they’d likely target them before they got there , down in Southeast Asia.

The Americas are also a big producer of rubber and Japan can't do that since they're transported on US ships to the US meaning that would violate their neutrality (do you really want war with the US? Last time despite a lot of luck you were completely destroyed)

Concessions as in help in the war.

It would be "Don't prevent me from fighting Russia/Germany" not a great concession.

Scandinavia alone won’t solve their resource problems.

Oil? No, but if you don't have metals you won't last long either.

I mean, GB is still an option- but I imagine with all of Mittleafrika they’re also gaining a lot of arable land.

Mittle Afrika is mostly jungle, not arable land and what you divert for agriculture isn't used to exploit raw materials like rubber or metals.

True. Maybe Gran Colombia can succeed where the US failed, though- perhaps a rebellious Venezuela is put down, leading to a more centralized Gran Colombia.

Not very likely, the government needs to compromise due to the influence of the Venezuelian elite and the rest of Gran Colombia doesn't have much of an advantage over Venezuela and it would lead to its collapse like OTL once Venezuela secedes.

I guess- it’d be a hard sell to Britain, though. Even if they’re strapped for Cash, Vancouver is an important port.

Depends on how bad things are and according to my predictions very, very bad.

Hm. Maybe the US peacefully negotiates their return postwar, but with greater autonomy? Like, they return to the US, but Deseret becomes a semi-independent “commonwealth of Deseret” (with similar things happening in California and Oregon, potentially some free city situation in NYC) that spell disaster for the US further down the line?

See Puerto Rico for Deseret, not great.
California and Oregon probably wouldn't get special status, New England and Texas have a strong regional identity but they didn't get special status and the US system is quite de-centralized, at least before FDR.
NYC cannot even start a proper rebellion, it can't create a proper military, at worst you have a lot of protesters on the streets and anarchy reigns but once the situation calms down it won't be able to do much.

That’s tough. I was thinking of a few more of them joining the CS (like Kentucky) but generally I imagine they are forced to give up slavery- maybe the KKK form here as a sort of pro-confederate militias in the northern slave states?

Well if all of the slave states are in the Confederacy then no but if Kentucky or Missouri are a part of the Union then there will be some but they wouldn't be much more than an annoyance to the Union.

And with low infrastructure- yeah, the US military is in for hell.

*ironic voice*How they only need to Search and Destroy the rebels, there won't be any problems at all.

The cp are certainly the ones with the larger advantage, but they aren’t lording over Britain- Britain is an equal player at the negotiations, and they’re not going to accept any overreaching stipulations.

They need to send a message that they will lose more if they try again.

But this was a strike that happened in protest of a political action- it had no relation to food, and it would’ve happened even if they had full bellies.

It was an anti-war protest, not only because of the arrest which also was a consequence of the war.

Not all of it, but yea, they’d be the easiest to administer.

Okay, they're Catholics and the Russians Orthodox but this is nothing compared to the rest.

That’s if they decide to keep it.

They won't give it to the Italians, they would ask to get territories elsewhere and the Italians have always dreamed to dominate the Adriatic, the Germans could demand it and get it for other concessions in Europe but I doubt they will.

I dread to think of how Zionism and Russian antisemitism interact. Palestine is a troubled place as always, it seems- but they’d also likely be the largest target of the Church’s “christianisation”.

Anatolia would also not be the most stable region of the Empire since the Turks hate the Russians more than the Arabs ever will.
Also apart from Palestine does Russia annex the territories or does it create puppet states?

They weren’t nobles, though.

They were, they didn't have the land but they were aristocrats, you don't need land to be a noble not rich, you need to be part of a noble family.

Small nobility was essentially all Russia had for a middle class.

Small nobility wasn't a middle class, it was a privileged class who was less powerful than the big nobles, the middle class are people like the kulaks.

The conference at Berlin decided the conflicts between Britain and France- and their disputed areas all became areas anyway. Thailand survived longer because it modernized its political system after they were beginning to be carved up.

There were no other states between France and GB.

It would’ve been a similar situation to the zulus- they would put up significantly more resistance than their neighbours due to their centralized nature.

The Zulus were much more centralized than the Ethiopians,

An official French force? Sir, are you mad? This is simply a collection of god-fearing Frenchmen here of their own volition to protect the states rights of noble Dixieland! A ruse? Why, our righteous Napoleon III would NEVER dream of such underhanded tactics.

That wasn't how diplomacy was made in the 1800's, French forces available would probably be sent to Mexico and the CS would get economic and food support.

The Venezuelan ELITE would be profiting a lot more, though.

The Venezuelan Elite are landowners, not industrials.

La radicalisme- c'est tout les mêmes.

Though it is true that Germany can't bully France or impose its conditions on it as harshly as France did to Germany because of a certain threat to the East.

That’s a veeeeery slow process, and Russia needs generals now.

Not really, by the 1870's would you consider GB aristocratic? Russia has the time.

 

[Krasno]

This war was significantly less destructive than it was OTL in France or GB, there will be some issues however we still have an absolute monarchy or at worst something like Imperial Germany which could help stabilize the country.

There wouldn’t be an absolute monarchy in Russia, they wouldn’t lose all their powers but even the moderate Decembrists wanted a constitutional monarchy.

Depends on who, the CS certainly manages but I imagine that the US would try to keep California to have a morale boost.

I guess, but I do want to do something with California before it dies.

No cooperhead will be able to pull a Lenin and pulling a Lenin isn't secession, it's a change of government but Ohio and New York won't secede because of the war, at worst they'll strike until the war is over.

Lenin’s tactics can work for about any movement you need it for, though- promise an end to war to a war-weary people and you’ll get supporters.

The US knows that accepting this would be extremely dangerous, you have no way of controlling that no weapons are transported and you're already struggling to secure DC with the blockade, imagine without, it means throwing the war out of the window certainly so you might as well call the bluff.

I wouldn’t call it throwing the war out the window, even with food imports the CS are still largely an international pariah with an unstable slave society and a chronic distaste for central government. The US still holds the military advantage, and any strength of CSA is still infinitely better than Britain joining.

Using the Irishmen would be counter-productive since they wouldn't be trained for warfare, it's even worse than a militia; the problem isn't about how many soldiers Canada has, the problem is how many soldiers can the US distract for another front and the quality of these troops (which would be extremely low).

It’s not like they wouldn’t receive training- and even with minimal training if they have twice the soldiers Britain does they’ll at the least hold the line.

The problem is that accepting Britain's demands means the CS is very likely to win and the US knows that, if there is 50-50 chance for Britain to join it's better than the 20-80 chance you win if the CS isn't blockaded and GB and France would be able to supply the CS on top of it.

20-80 is a gross exaggeration IMO, the CSA, even with cotton exports, would NOT be robust enough to have victory be so assured. Also, if Britain joins in, it’s 0-100 odds for the US.

I doubt it would try to secede, the protests were anti-war or for higher wages not to have an independent country. And NYC has no way of assembling a proper army, the police would be enough to maintain control over the city.

With better organization and a more involved Fernando Wood I don’t see why it’s implausible- they had similar goals, it wouldn’t take too much to convince them. Even if they don’t host a large professional army, it’ll take time before US soldiers arrive- and by then they’d collapse either from the invasion or internal dissent.

The Pacific isn't the most important part of of maritime trade and there are other ports, that won't save it.

It’s an important port for anyone looking to trade in the pacific, though, so it does have a thing of value to barter with.

Deseret won't really prevent armies from reaching California since what they are doing is preventing full US control of the territory but they cannot oppose a large army sent by the Union to re-conquer California, they can only slow it down.

And mutilate already paper thin supply lines- the US has next to no infrastructure connecting it to the west ATTP, guerilla fighters are dangerous if you want to lead an invading army.

The most likely migrants in California will be US citizens, it would develop a separate identity but IMO it will be like Texas.

I’m planning for there to be a much more significant immigration drive from Japan following the 1891 earthquake- combined with more significant Russian settlement of Fort Ross prior to its sale to the US/California, it’ll make for a more diverse California with maybe its own national identity.

Peru-Bolivia, Central America and Gran Colombia wouldn't be very stable, they both collapsed OTL and to keep them together there would have to be a lot of compromises (similar to the compromises between the slave and free states in the US) and this will cause significant instability which will prevent changes.

The US was able to shed these problems off; given the smaller scale of the LatAm states, it shouldn’t be impossible.

The states' economies are still mostly based on selling raw materials (especially agricultural products) and there is an elite which is already formed which prevents changes thanks to its influence (one of the main reasons why Brazil is so popular to become a GP is because it was an empire for a while which would allow it to prosper more easily thanks to the central figure)

Agree.

If everyone is a regional power then they're not a regional power anymore, it will be normal at that point.

Theyre more robust than the sum of their parts OTL- that’s what I mean by regional powers. They aren’t the small, weak nations they are OTL.

Apart from the Nazis and Conquistadors there weren't many cases of pure plot armor.

Everything is plot armour in history. Everything can’t happen until it does.

But Britain doesn't join 100% whereas not blockading helps the CS 100%,

But Britain joining in means you lose 100%, the CSA being stronger doesn’t.

bot are risky but I think it's better to call Britain's bluff since without the blockade the CS is likely to succeed in seceding.

They’re even MORE likely to successfully secede if you bring Britain in.

There are a lot of ways to avoid it and the US cannot control what ships transport, even without weapons the biggest problem of the South was food which is solved ITTL as cotton becomes useful now.

It’s better that than the alternative- at least with this they can try and potentially press Britain for further concessions if they prove an arms deal takes place.

I would doubt that, at the moment of the Trent incident the Civil war had started relatively recently and the front was a stalemate due to bad weather, at that moment you couldn't be sure about US victory since a stalemate is enough to secede for the Confederacy.

The US is made of stronger stuff- it’s why I wanted so many places to secede, the US and especially Lincoln have no intention of allowing the south to go independent- it would take extreme circumstances. Lincoln wants to avoid those extreme circumstances, so he wouldn’t risk war with Britain- he tried his best to avoid it OTL with the Trent affair.

Had the UK been truly neutral, the Trent affair would've been completely irrelevant.

A British ship had been intercepted by the US navy- even if you’re fully neutral, that’s going to cause tensions.

After a few years (3-4 years) Germany will run out of food and money,

I feel that’s very conservative. Germany still has access to free trade, essentially the entire worlds resources are still flowing into Germany- even if you use the example of OTL Britain they would keep taking loans as long as need be, and suffer the consequences postwar.

meanwhile Russia would still be in a position to continue the war

This isn’t the USSR- they aren’t fully geared towards warfare, nor would they be able to fight to the same effect as the Soviets.

and the German army being so outnumbered would suffer a lot of defeats.

Outnumbered does not mean outclassed- the German army would likely be much more modern, in equipment and tactics.

That status quo yes but they weren't allies on everything except liberals.

They had a conflict of interest, but they also had a mutual understanding that allowed them to cooperate.

It was largely enough for warfare, they didn't produce anything else but that's beyond the point.

But the US has far more industries AND is still producing non-wartime material- the US has a lot more untapped power in the bank, the Soviets were running on fumes.

I'm not sure how much but the US wasn't fighting all on war like the USSR was, conditions of living inside the US weren't particularly affected; they would need absolute total war to win and even then they're likely to lose.

If they’re playing the long game- no, they don’t. The only win condition for the USSR against the USA is that public support for the war drops so low that they’re forced to pull out, but if that doesn’t happen the US keeps making more planes and more guns and Britain really does become an airstrip.

UK and US are outnumbered 2 to 1 by the USSR, they have no way of winning while the Soviet army is of better quality and is vastly outnumbering them. Operation Unthinkable planned to use German soldiers (there were nowhere near enough to fight the Soviets even then) to fight the Soviets but this would mean that the population of Eastern Europe would support the Soviets.

Operation unthinkable would fail, I agree, but not due to a superior Soviet Army- but due to discontent at home.

The US produced less war related stuff than the Soviets, it had a bigger industrial output overall but talking only about heavy industry the Soviets were better and the US doesn't have ways to levy more soldiers than the USSR the latter had 40 million people more so mass production is useless.

You don’t need a mass of soldiers to win- the US would eventually out produce the Soviets in terms of AirPower, and when that happens the Soviet troops see what Hiroshima looked like.

I wouldn't define the Soviet Union as revolutionary, it was totalitarian.

I meant that it was disconnected from the global capitalist system- largely as a result of their revolution, thereby being “revolutionary”

And that helps the Soviet, Truman and Churchill would have to find a very good reason to convince their population to go to die against the Soviets whereas what Stalin says is not put into discussion by anyone.

I know, but if it came to a longterm war then the US and UK ultimately have more resources and money to fall on.

The question is who? Both the nationalist generals and the pacifists would point that, since the first consider their great nation blocked by this submission to Britain and the second think that it was because of Britain that they had to suffer in war.

I imagine that would be the consensus of the more dogmatic elements- but more pragmatic nationalists and liberals and such would see relying on Britain as an uncomfortable necessity to stay uncolonized- ironic as it is.

Their economy would do better, Japan was destroyed by the Wall Street Crash in 1929 since most of its trade was with the US, here this doesn't happen meaning that ultra-nationalism is less likely to overtake the generals (AFAIK the population supported the things the Japanese military did because it was the only thing that was still great despite the crisis).

They did lose WW1, though- that would do a number on the economy, especially since their main trading partners have gone broke (save the US, but they can’t exactly rely on them ITTL)

The Americas are also a big producer of rubber and Japan can't do that since they're transported on US ships to the US meaning that would violate their neutrality (do you really want war with the US? Last time despite a lot of luck you were completely destroyed)

Smarter leaderships have done dumber things.

It would be "Don't prevent me from fighting Russia/Germany" not a great concession.

Or “be more preferential to me in trade deals”, more likely- until such a time that they’re forced in by some unfortunate event.

Oil? No, but if you don't have metals you won't last long either.

Metals alone won’t support you, though.

Mettle Africa is mostly jungle, not arable land and what you divert for agriculture isn't used to exploit raw materials like rubber or metals.

The two aren’t mutually exclusive- food is important, it wouldn’t be a loss to invest in it. Mittleafrika is only really lush jungle in the northern chunks, near the equator- there’s a good concentration of arable land in the east and south.

Not very likely, the government needs to compromise due to the influence of the Venezuelian elite and the rest of Gran Colombia doesn't have much of an advantage over Venezuela and it would lead to its collapse like OTL once Venezuela secedes.

The US needed to compromise with southern elites, too- that’s not an issue, and Venezuela isn’t rich at the time enough to my knowledge that the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to gang on them.

Depends on how bad things are and according to my predictions very, very bad.

They’re likely to lose a good chunk of their empire if it’s that bad.

See Puerto Rico for Deseret, not great.

I’d imagine they get more autonomy than *that*, especially if they won it by force.

California and Oregon probably wouldn't get special status,

True, but it may affect the state borders- and the national consciousness down the line.

New England and Texas have a strong regional identity but they didn't get special status

We’re talking how the US would be restructured after losing a civil war, though.

and the US system is quite de-centralized, at least before FDR.

AFAIK it mostly began to decentralize directly after the civil war.

NYC cannot even start a proper rebellion, it can't create a proper military, at worst you have a lot of protesters on the streets and anarchy reigns but once the situation calms down it won't be able to do much.

With proper organization I can see them lasting a few- and even longterm anarchy is bad for US revenue.

Well if all of the slave states are in the Confederacy then no but if Kentucky or Missouri are a part of the Union then there will be some but they wouldn't be much more than an annoyance to the Union.

I was thinking just Kentucky- but yeah, I guess Missouri will be the heart of the Klan lol

*ironic voice*How they only need to Search and Destroy the rebels, there won't be any problems at all.

Ah, the good old USA…

They need to send a message that they will lose more if they try again.

The message is already there; “the war is lost come to a compromise now before you lose your status as a great power”.

It was an anti-war protest, not only because of the arrest which also was a consequence of the war.

It was organized by the socialists to protest Liebknecht’s arrest- yes it was anti war, but it wasn’t inspired by hunger or anything.

Okay, they're Catholics and the Russians Orthodox but this is nothing compared to the rest.

True.

They won't give it to the Italians, they would ask to get territories elsewhere and the Italians have always dreamed to dominate the Adriatic, the Germans could demand it and get it for other concessions in Europe but I doubt they will.

More than the Adriatic they wanted to dominate the Mediterranean, which Syria would certainly help in doing.

Anatolia would also not be the most stable region of the Empire since the Turks hate the Russians more than the Arabs ever will.

Oh yeah, expect some very angry Turks ITTL.

Also apart from Palestine does Russia annex the territories or does it create puppet states?

Mostly just colonies- similar to what France and Britain had in the ME, where they were “mandates” (or in this case governorates) under the empire.

They were, they didn't have the land but they were aristocrats, you don't need land to be a noble not rich, you need to be part of a noble family.

They were a family of German immigrants who grew to be bureaucrats- they were German middle class, no?

Small nobility wasn't a middle class, it was a privileged class who was less powerful than the big nobles, the middle class are people like the kulaks.

The Kulaks are still not living great, they’re more like slightly richer farmers- the small nobility was often not making much money but at least was affording some pricier items.

There were no other states between France and GB.

Because they all got colonized- they had conflicting interests, like they did in Thailand, but solved them in the Berlin congress.

The Zulus were much more centralized than the Ethiopians,

The Zulu were largely operating under a clan system, the Ethiopians had a large scale Kingdom.

That wasn't how diplomacy was made in the 1800's, French forces available would probably be sent to Mexico and the CS would get economic and food support.

There’d be at least a few genuine volunteers from France.

The Venezuelan Elite are landowners, not industrials.

Rich people can be both.

Though it is true that Germany can't bully France or impose its conditions on it as harshly as France did to Germany because of a certain threat to the East.

Very true.

Not really, by the 1870's would you consider GB aristocratic? Russia has the time.

Partially, still- it is always nobles governing the colonies, you know.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

-Carlist Victory in the Third Carlist War: I'll admit that I know very little about this conflict- But I want a Carlist Spain for two reasons: one, because I'm pretty sure (?) the Carlists were sympathetic to Germany in WW1, and two, because they absorbed Spanish irridentism and expansionism, and I want a larger, stronger (but significantly more unstable) Spain to act as a tug of war and splitting point between Germany and Italy.

ASB. If you want a Carlist victory, you should move it to the first war (1833–1840). A 1870s victory is like hoping Germany winning WW2 in 1944.

OTL Infante Jaime, who would have been king by 1914, was quite pro-Russian, so you need to change that.

Having Spain as ally in WW1 would be for Germany the same burden of Italy in WW2, like being allies to Russia but without the massive armies, unless Spain undergoings a very fast process of modernizatiom. The question is if the unified Germany can pay that bill.

An stronger but unstable Spain is a contradiction in terms.

If Spain wants an African Empire is going to be bitterly dissappointed. France would not concede any claims to a dangerous southern neighbour with German leanings.

And, of course, USA, Cuba and 1898 are waiting, grinning, on the next corner.

There's a lot of work to do if you want a powerful Spain by the 1900s.

 

[Krasno]

ASB. If you want a Carlist victory, you should move it to the first war (1833–1840). A 1870s victory is like hoping Germany winning WW2 in 1944.

Yeah, once I started to look into it more, the first war seemed a much better POD for Spain.

OTL Infante Jaime, who would have been king by 1914, was quite pro-Russian, so you need to change that.

Russia and Germany ally ITTL- I just wrote it as Germany because I was mostly going off of the Spanish conservative leanings towards Germany OTL.

Having Spain as ally in WW1 would be for Germany the same burden of Italy in WW2, like being allies to Russia but without the massive armies, unless Spain undergoings a very fast process of modernizatiom. The question is if the unified Germany can pay that bill.

Probably not- though wouldn’t Spain join late into the war (as in, when France is already collapsing) were that the case?

A stronger but unstable Spain is a contradiction in terms.

Ah, I suppose I meant moreso that they hold more resources, and are thus economically stronger.

If Spain wants an African Empire is going to be bitterly dissappointed. France would not concede any claims to a dangerous southern neighbour with German leanings.

But was there anything Spain was particularly interested in acquiring in the Berlin conference? I’m not so much looking to wank Spain as I am trying to find what their claims would be, what they’d push for in a WW1 peace deal.

And, of course, USA, Cuba and 1898 are waiting, grinning, on the next corner.

These events may have a significant change with a CSA victory in the civil war, though- the US won’t be as interested in Cuba if their Caribbean ports are all lost.

There's a lot of work to do if you want a powerful Spain by the 1900s.

I’m not looking for a powerful Spain so much as a slightly stronger and more power hungry Spain.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

There wouldn’t be an absolute monarchy in Russia, they wouldn’t lose all their powers but even the moderate Decembrists wanted a constitutional monarchy.

Germany also was a constitutional monarchy, it depends on who severe are the conditions put on the Tsar and if you follow the idea I gave you on your threat on the Decembrists, not a lot.

I guess, but I do want to do something with California before it dies.

That's not a problem, they can have their place in the sun during the ACW.

Lenin’s tactics can work for about any movement you need it for, though- promise an end to war to a war-weary people and you’ll get supporters.

It's not the same situation, people in Russia were starving for a while and they were fighting for a Tsar they hated, it still took Lenin a while to be able to coup the Provisional Government, here the war is basically over by that point and you're not starving (or if food is rationed not to the extent of pre October Revolution Russia).

I wouldn’t call it throwing the war out the window, even with food imports the CS are still largely an international pariah with an unstable slave society and a chronic distaste for central government. The US still holds the military advantage, and any strength of CSA is still infinitely better than Britain joining.

Not really, it isn't an international pariah since Britain is seriously trying to save in your TL and it isn't that unstable, obviously the slaves are unhappy but they are dominated (there are plenty of examples of exploitation with racism that lasted a very long time) and they are a minority of the population, the main problem of the South (lack of food) is now solved and if the US gives concessions, Confederate and Union troops are still fighting around Washington at that point, so allowing this would mean throwing out of the window your long term chances of winning the war.

It’s not like they wouldn’t receive training- and even with minimal training if they have twice the soldiers Britain does they’ll at the least hold the line.

That's what they thought in 1812 and it went terribly wrong for them.

20-80 is a gross exaggeration IMO, the CSA, even with cotton exports, would NOT be robust enough to have victory be so assured. Also, if Britain joins in, it’s 0-100 odds for the US.

30-70 at best, you're letting the CS being supplied in weapons, make money, import food and other useful things and looking at it with a 1861 perspective there is no sign that you're winning the war with the CS even with all of your advantages, so if you remove all of your long-term advantages how will you win?

With better organization and a more involved Fernando Wood I don’t see why it’s implausible- they had similar goals, it wouldn’t take too much to convince them. Even if they don’t host a large professional army, it’ll take time before US soldiers arrive- and by then they’d collapse either from the invasion or internal dissent.

If they want to protest they'll strike, secession isn't how you protest against war, you strike until concessions and the only thing that can fight against the state is an uncontrollable mob for which the police is largely enough.

And mutilate already paper thin supply lines- the US has next to no infrastructure connecting it to the west ATTP, guerilla fighters are dangerous if you want to lead an invading army.

Guerilla fights are very effective when the opponent is trying to control the territory however if an army only needs to pass it won't have that much problems, some will be but they're not enough to do more than annoy Union troops.

I’m planning for there to be a much more significant immigration drive from Japan following the 1891 earthquake- combined with more significant Russian settlement of Fort Ross prior to its sale to the US/California, it’ll make for a more diverse California with maybe its own national identity.

It would have its own identity however you can't realistically make Japanese and Russian migration more important than the US one, it would develop a separate identity due to its longer time independent (like Texas).

The US was able to shed these problems off; given the smaller scale of the LatAm states, it shouldn’t be impossible.

It'll be harder but the LatAm states are still dominated by the US economically who is basically their only trading partner; they'd be more independent because before the Cold War the US didn't have an influence as strong in South America than in Central one.

Theyre more robust than the sum of their parts OTL- that’s what I mean by regional powers. They aren’t the small, weak nations they are OTL.

That's debatable since they are dominated by the US economically and have a lot more issues internally due to be a confederation of states, internal divisions ideal to divide et impera.

Everything is plot armour in history. Everything can’t happen until it does.

????

But Britain joining in means you lose 100%, the CSA being stronger doesn’t.

But Britain doesn't join the CS 100% if you call its bluff and you probably know that there are some who contest this decision in Britain.

They’re even MORE likely to successfully secede if you bring Britain in.

But Britain doesn't necessarily join, if you call its bluff the British themselves don't know what they'll do.

It’s better that than the alternative- at least with this they can try and potentially press Britain for further concessions if they prove an arms deal takes place.

How can you control that France and GB aren't supplying the South?

The US is made of stronger stuff- it’s why I wanted so many places to secede, the US and especially Lincoln have no intention of allowing the south to go independent- it would take extreme circumstances. Lincoln wants to avoid those extreme circumstances, so he wouldn’t risk war with Britain- he tried his best to avoid it OTL with the Trent affair.

You can't just let Britain impose conditions on you, that's bad for morale and reinforces the CS war effort significantly.

I feel that’s very conservative. Germany still has access to free trade, essentially the entire worlds resources are still flowing into Germany- even if you use the example of OTL Britain they would keep taking loans as long as need be, and suffer the consequences postwar.

Germany wouldn't be able to have all of this money, they're importing everything for their war effort unlike Britain and for the entire duration of the war nonetheless, and GB had the US' help economically while Germany does not.

This isn’t the USSR- they aren’t fully geared towards warfare, nor would they be able to fight to the same effect as the Soviets.

The Soviets won from this position:

So I think that Germany can't really win because Germany isn't full on war either without the Nazis.

Outnumbered does not mean outclassed- the German army would likely be much more modern, in equipment and tactics.

Russia would be at least on a comparable level in equipment and tactics won't really be superior and the fact that you can number much larger armies means that these advantages become irrelevant, you can be lucky once or twice but in the long run there's no way you can compete with the Russian war machine, they just outproduce you and outnumber you.

But the US has far more industries AND is still producing non-wartime material- the US has a lot more untapped power in the bank, the Soviets were running on fumes.

That's a disadvantage since you don't have as much relevant industries for wartime, it takes a lot of time to train, gear and send armies to Europe, time in which you already lost the war.

If they’re playing the long game- no, they don’t. The only win condition for the USSR against the USA is that public support for the war drops so low that they’re forced to pull out, but if that doesn’t happen the US keeps making more planes and more guns and Britain really does become an airstrip.

There's no way the US and UK are winning, they're outnumbered two to one, have an inferior equipment and are outnumbered in population (since the USSR can count on its Eastern European puppets once you recruit Germans to fight).

You don’t need a mass of soldiers to win- the US would eventually out produce the Soviets in terms of AirPower, and when that happens the Soviet troops see what Hiroshima looked like.

Not really, they could do that with Japan but they can't crush the Soviet airforce especially not when the Soviets have freaking better planes then you when your war doctrine is get control of the air, also planes are useless if there are no troops to follow, meaning that you badly need recruits and it's a impossible to nuke if your planes will manage to get to Moscow if they have to fly from Britain, they'll get shot down long before that.

I know, but if it came to a longterm war then the US and UK ultimately have more resources and money to fall on.

They can't longterm they'll get kicked out of Europe long before they can react in any way and a D-day invasion is impossible to achieve, there's no way you're winning a war by hiding on the English Channel, that's like suggesting the US and UK could defeat Nazi Germany alone.

I imagine that would be the consensus of the more dogmatic elements- but more pragmatic nationalists and liberals and such would see relying on Britain as an uncomfortable necessity to stay uncolonized- ironic as it is.

They'll think that Britain is unreliable (due to it being isolationist) and that Japan needs to act to not be colonized (obviously to not get colonized you invade other countries no?)

They did lose WW1, though- that would do a number on the economy, especially since their main trading partners have gone broke (save the US, but they can’t exactly rely on them ITTL)

Not as much as the Great Depression, that removed almost all of Japanese trade while here they "only" took a big hit. And they can trade with the US ITTL, they did so while it was their more likely enemy in the future, why wouldn't they ITTL.

Smarter leaderships have done dumber things.

That's suicide, just pure suicide, they didn't want to fight both Russia (USSR) and US at the same time, you defeat the first and then go for the second.

Or “be more preferential to me in trade deals”, more likely- until such a time that they’re forced in by some unfortunate event.

They both will try to convince it to join their side but Britain won't be forced to listen to them, how do they force it in the war except by provoking war themselves with it?

The two aren’t mutually exclusive- food is important, it wouldn’t be a loss to invest in it. Mittleafrika is only really lush jungle in the northern chunks, near the equator- there’s a good concentration of arable land in the east and south.

The idea is to exploit resources like metals, rubber etc. not do agriculture, you don't need a colony for that.

The US needed to compromise with southern elites, too- that’s not an issue, and Venezuela isn’t rich at the time enough to my knowledge that the rest of the country wouldn’t be able to gang on them.

It collapsed OTL because of the Venezuelan elite, and the rest of the country is on the same level of development as Venezuela.

They’re likely to lose a good chunk of their empire if it’s that bad.

I’d imagine they get more autonomy than *that*, especially if they won it by force.

Everybody knows that Puerto Rico chose to be a part of the US.

We’re talking how the US would be restructured after losing a civil war, though.

I doubt they would change how the system is structured.

With proper organization I can see them lasting a few- and even longterm anarchy is bad for US revenue.

Even for this to happen you need to make significant changes.

More than the Adriatic they wanted to dominate the Mediterranean, which Syria would certainly help in doing.

You dominate the Med thanks to strategic islands, Cyprus and Malta are made for that, Syria isn't that important for the Med.

Mostly just colonies- similar to what France and Britain had in the ME, where they were “mandates” (or in this case governorates) under the empire.

Wouldn't they like have a protectorate over them?

They were a family of German immigrants who grew to be bureaucrats- they were German middle class, no?

Aristocrat means being part of an aristocratic family, you can live like a sans-culotte but you still are a noble due to lineage, and they were German nobility who immigrated to Russia not middle class.

The Kulaks are still not living great, they’re more like slightly richer farmers- the small nobility was often not making much money but at least was affording some pricier items.

Kulaks are all the middle class that exists with some merchants and craftsmen.

The Zulu were largely operating under a clan system, the Ethiopians had a large scale Kingdom.

The Zulus were very centralized since they were a rising power, the king forced the clans to follow him but for the moment they had not that much say in the state's affairs, Ethiopia had a very strong nobility.

There’d be at least a few genuine volunteers from France.

To fight for slavery? That's not a very French thing to do, if that person is extremely poor it joins the army, it doesn't go to voluntarily fight a war, it hopes it won't have to.

Rich people can be both.

It's like saying that the South's landowners also invested a lot in industry, they did somewhat but they mainly invested in what they already did before.

Partially, still- it is always nobles governing the colonies, you know.

More the upper classes in general.

 

[Krasno]

Germany also was a constitutional monarchy, it depends on who severe are the conditions put on the Tsar and if you follow the idea I gave you on your threat on the Decembrists, not a lot.

Part of my plan is including the youngest brother Michael in the plot, honestly- my plan was for him to witness the assassination of his father and develop a hatred of the nobility as a result. He was also a military man, so that might ingratiate the Decembrists to him. Basically, the Decembrists recruit more people and get to power through political intrigue.

That's not a problem, they can have their place in the sun during the ACW.

I guess I’ll have a chapter after the Civil war where the US starts going west to deal with their rebellious states- the frontier wars or something.

It's not the same situation, people in Russia were starving for a while and they were fighting for a Tsar they hated, it still took Lenin a while to be able to coup the Provisional Government, here the war is basically over by that point and you're not starving (or if food is rationed not to the extent of pre October Revolution Russia).

I don’t think the end of the war would be obvious until the very very end- and people were already dissatisfied enough with the war to riot, I feel they’d at least convince a chunk of the population- remember, they don’t need a government overthrow, just smaller scale armed revolt in NYC and chunks of Ohio.

Not really, it isn't an international pariah since Britain is seriously trying to save in your TL

France and Britain would be about their only allies, and even then they’d be subject to boycotts by the population.

and it isn't that unstable, obviously the slaves are unhappy but they are dominated (there are plenty of examples of exploitation with racism that lasted a very long time) and they are a minority of the population,

Not unstable? Slaves would still engage in acts of mass sabotage as they did OTL, and though they may be a minority, they were a slim one- they were the majority in 2 states AFAIK, and a large minority in most others.

The main problem of the South (lack of food) is now solved and if the US gives concessions, Confederate and Union troops are still fighting around Washington at that point,

they were still fighting around Washington OTL, too- the battle of Gettysburg took place in 1863. While the CS may advance more, it isn’t so decisive that they’re unbeatable.

so allowing this would mean throwing out of the window your long term chances of winning the war.

Not necessarily. The south advancing further just means they have a temporary advantage- the US still outclasses them in population, industry, etc. All it does is make the CS more of a match.

That's what they thought in 1812 and it went terribly wrong for them.

Britain was heavily militarized against Napoleon in OTL.

30-70 at best, you're letting the CS being supplied in weapons, make money, import food and other useful things and looking at it with a 1861 perspective there is no sign that you're winning the war with the CS even with all of your advantages, so if you remove all of your long-term advantages how will you win?

All it does is make the CS a semi-functioning state- the US still outclasses them, as long as Britain doesn’t join, the US wins in the longterm due to sheer economic and military weight. That’s what they would’ve predicted, anyway.

If they want to protest they'll strike, secession isn't how you protest against war, you strike until concessions and the only thing that can fight against the state is an uncontrollable mob for which the police is largely enough.

Secession could be called the ULTIMATE protest against war- they were clearly willing to violently protest the war, if a guy comes in saying “y know, if we secede, they can’t recruit us” then I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that the rioters are convinced- and the police weren’t enough to settle them down OTL, militias fresh from Gettysburg had to be sent in. If the battle of Gettysburg is lost, those militias aren’t as available- and with a more premeditated plan, a formal secession isn’t implausible. I’d predict that much of the city would still be in Anarchy- but if it deprives the US of their tariffs, its already enough.

Guerilla fights are very effective when the opponent is trying to control the territory however if an army only needs to pass it won't have that much problems, some will be but they're not enough to do more than annoy Union troops.

They certainly are. The US would have to send a significant enough force to deal with that large of a territory- that army had to be fed, its ammunition replenished, and its supplies restocked. On small, undeveloped supply lines, what do you think Guerillas are going to do to those supplies?

It would have its own identity however you can't realistically make Japanese and Russian migration more important than the US one, it would develop a separate identity due to its longer time independent (like Texas).

It’s not going to overtake the US, but it’s significant enough to affect the demographics, culture, and identity of the region- much like the Scottish, Irish, etc on the west coast. With a stronger, more developed identity, it makes the west coast a much more culturally independent region.

It'll be harder but the LatAm states are still dominated by the US economically who is basically their only trading partner; they'd be more independent because before the Cold War the US didn't have an influence as strong in South America than in Central one.

I wouldn’t say the US is their only trading partner- Britain and France are still on a much larger level than the US, and they have economic interests in the LatAm states.

That's debatable since they are dominated by the US economically and have a lot more issues internally due to be a confederation of states, internal divisions ideal to divide et impera.

The US still doesn’t have anywhere near that type of economic domination over the Americas, especially not with the European great powers still meddling- though I do agree those internal divisions would be painful.

????

Plot armour happened for tons of countries in history- it just doesn’t seem that way because it’s already happened and we’re looking back.

But Britain doesn't join the CS 100% if you call its bluff and you probably know that there are some who contest this decision in Britain.

Lincoln did everything he could during the Trent affair not to bring Britain into the war, such a brash decision would be unlike him- besides, my point is that it’s not at all less likely that the US doesn’t call the bluff- it’s certainly possible under the conditions, even if it’s detrimental to the US- the prospect of Britain joining in is terrifiying.

But Britain doesn't necessarily join, if you call its bluff the British themselves don't know what they'll do.

That’s if you call their bluff- in the moment, you can’t be sure, and you’d potentially be bringing devastation on your nation. Congress certainly wouldn’t be excited about tempting fate with the Brits.

How can you control that France and GB aren't supplying the South?

I mean for one, I don’t think they would- they’re not unflinchingly loyal to the CS, and they’d in all likeliness at least put up a face of respecting the agreement with the US, and secondly- they can’t, but diplomacy always requires a degree of trust. Like, any guns sent can’t be British or French models, or else it’s clear that the agreement has been broken and you’d have a reverse Trent affair with the US demanding concessions from Britain, and either way just trade with the CS is enough for France and Britain.

You can't just let Britain impose conditions on you, that's bad for morale and reinforces the CS war effort significantly.

They don’t really have a choice- it’s always gone down to this: yes, agreeing to Britains terms is bad for your war effort, but do we really want to risk British intervention, which would make EVERYTHING worse? It’s a game of compromise- though the US obviously won’t be thrilled to agree, if they can extract certain other concessions from Britain in exchange, that’s the best situation they can hope for.

Germany wouldn't be able to have all of this money, they're importing everything for their war effort unlike Britain and for the entire duration of the war nonetheless, and GB had the US' help economically while Germany does not.

Germany isn’t in total war against Russia- they’re still producing things of value and have a vast and lucrative empire, they’d last longer than a few years.

The Soviets won from this position:

So I think that Germany can't really win because Germany isn't full on war either without the Nazis.

It depends on what WW2 starts over- I find it totally implausible that Germany just says “ok, time for war because we said so”- they need some kind of reason, either Russia invading someone or a territorial dispute or something. If anything, I don’t really think this is going to be a total war for either of them- at least, not on the scale of WW1. This isn’t a war of ideology like WW2, so if the war drags on for a while there may just be a compromise deal or white peace.

Russia would be at least on a comparable level in equipment

Russia doesn’t have the engineering drive they got during the USSR; their equipment likely remains inferior for a while.

and tactics won't really be superior

You still have old guards like Denikin and Wrangel dominating the discussion; talented though Tukhachevsky may be, the Russian Army would be stuck on a doctrine of throwing bodies at the enemy for a while.

and the fact that you can number much larger armies means that these advantages become irrelevant

It doesn’t matter how large their armies may be if they don’t have sufficiently developed equipment and tactics; Russia would also likely have far less mechanization than OTL.

you can be lucky once or twice but in the long run there's no way you can compete with the Russian war machine, they just outproduce you and outnumber you.

Again, depends on the nature of WW2.

That's a disadvantage since you don't have as much relevant industries for wartime, it takes a lot of time to train, gear and send armies to Europe, time in which you already lost the war.

Having more industries is a disadvantage? The US provided two-thirds of all military equipment during the war, they already have a vast capability for production- they also have more access to resources than the USSR, thanks to the empires of France and Britain combined.

There's no way the US and UK are winning, they're outnumbered two to one, have an inferior equipment and are outnumbered in population (since the USSR can count on its Eastern European puppets once you recruit Germans to fight).

They’re not nearly as battered as the USSR is- the Soviets can only last so long on war communism.

Not really, they could do that with Japan but they can't crush the Soviet airforce especially not when the Soviets have freaking better planes

I wouldn’t say the Soviet planes are so supremely better that America can’t match them.

then you when your war doctrine is get control of the air, also planes are useless if there are no troops to follow,

Planes certainly aren’t useless without troops- Japan surrendered without a single soldier on the mainland.

meaning that you badly need recruits and it's a impossible to nuke if your planes will manage to get to Moscow if they have to fly from Britain, they'll get shot down long before that.

They had long distance bombers at this point- and given the wide territory Soviet planes have to cover, there’d certainly be a few that slip through.

They can't longterm they'll get kicked out of Europe long before they can react in any way

I feel you’re overestimating Soviet speed here- there’s still a large amount of well supplied and well armed western troops in Europe, they’re not going to get totally overrun.

and a D-day invasion is impossible to achieve, there's no way you're winning a war by hiding on the English Channel, that's like suggesting the US and UK could defeat Nazi Germany alone.

While they certainly wouldn’t win in Europe alone, they’d eventually just starve out the Germans, and would’ve kept bombing them to oblivion throughout the war.

They'll think that Britain is unreliable (due to it being isolationist) and that Japan needs to act to not be colonized (obviously to not get colonized you invade other countries no?)

The problem is- what country do you invade? You have no access to China, Korea has been stripped from you, Hawaii is split between Russian and British interests, everything else is colonized… what would they do?

Not as much as the Great Depression, that removed almost all of Japanese trade while here they "only" took a big hit. And they can trade with the US ITTL, they did so while it was their more likely enemy in the future, why wouldn't they ITTL.

True.

That's suicide, just pure suicide, they didn't want to fight both Russia (USSR) and US at the same time, you defeat the first and then go for the second.

Pearl Harbour was suicide, too- even if the military isn’t in control of the government, they still decide on military actions, and they could still believe the US would take it lying down.

They both will try to convince it to join their side but Britain won't be forced to listen to them, how do they force it in the war except by provoking war themselves with it?

The problem is they’re inherently involved now- they’re an interest of both powers, and it’s only a matter of time until one incident or another brings them into the war.

The idea is to exploit resources like metals, rubber etc. not do agriculture, you don't need a colony for that.

??? That’s certainly not impossible, if you have fertile land in your colony and need a domestic food source, then by all means that colony would become your breadbasket.

It collapsed OTL because of the Venezuelan elite, and the rest of the country is on the same level of development as Venezuela.

That doesn’t mean the same will happen decades later.

Everybody knows that Puerto Rico chose to be a part of the US.

It’s a different situation- Puerto Rico was conquered, subjugated, Deseret seceded and is an absolute pain to put down- autonomy is how the US deals with them.

I doubt they would change how the system is structured.

There’d have to be some structural changes after a secession- too many people will be like “hey, this didn’t work.”

Even for this to happen you need to make significant changes.

Significant changes are happening.

You dominate the Med thanks to strategic islands, Cyprus and Malta are made for that, Syria isn't that important for the Med.

It gives you an important power base in the eastern Med- why do you think the French and British took it.

Wouldn't they like have a protectorate over them?

Kinda. It’d probably be like other colonial administrations where there’s on central governing authority over a collection of protectorates and colonies and such.

Aristocrat means being part of an aristocratic family, you can live like a sans-culotte but you still are a noble due to lineage, and they were German nobility who immigrated to Russia not middle class.

I cannot speak on Muravyov, but I see nothing written about Pestel being of noble lineage- just that he came from a German Lutheran family that happened to have bureaucratic ties.

Kulaks are all the middle class that exists with some merchants and craftsmen.

Middle class usually also implies a degree of higher education- merchants and craftsmen may apply, but I guess Kulaks are lower middle class.

The Zulus were very centralized since they were a rising power, the king forced the clans to follow him but for the moment they had not that much say in the state's affairs, Ethiopia had a very strong nobility.

I guess, but there’s a noticeable difference between their political systems. Though there were nobles, it’s still a much more advanced system than Shaka’s collection of clans.

To fight for slavery? That's not a very French thing to do, if that person is extremely poor it joins the army, it doesn't go to voluntarily fight a war, it hopes it won't have to.

I’d imagine volunteers would mainly come from the middle or low upper classes- those were the traditional support bases of il Nappy III, who tended to support the confederacy.

It's like saying that the South's landowners also invested a lot in industry, they did somewhat but they mainly invested in what they already did before.

They would’ve, eventually. They didn’t OTL because it was seen as giving too much power to the North, but for Gran Colombia who doesn’t have much of an established industry the Venezuelan elite may capitalize on it as an additional revenue source.

More the upper classes in general.

The nouveau riche didn’t tend to be sent to administer colonies- it was always someone with a noble title.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Part of my plan is including the youngest brother Michael in the plot, honestly- my plan was for him to witness the assassination of his father and develop a hatred of the nobility as a result. He was also a military man, so that might ingratiate the Decembrists to him. Basically, the Decembrists recruit more people and get to power through political intrigue.

Then the power of the Tsar is even stronger than OTL since there is no nobility but he doesn't have to make much concessions.
Anyways the idea of having the military much more angry towards the Tsar still works.

I guess I’ll have a chapter after the Civil war where the US starts going west to deal with their rebellious states- the frontier wars or something.

The Pacification of the Pacific Republic, the US wouldn't want to call it a war, they would try to pass it as protests by Southern immigrants instead of a tentative of becoming independent.

I don’t think the end of the war would be obvious until the very very end- and people were already dissatisfied enough with the war to riot, I feel they’d at least convince a chunk of the population- remember, they don’t need a government overthrow, just smaller scale armed revolt in NYC and chunks of Ohio.

The first thing they do is strike, if things go wrong there's violence between the police and protestors but I wouldn't call that a tentative to get independence.

France and Britain would be about their only allies, and even then they’d be subject to boycotts by the population.

They entered into a larger geopolitical game so obviously Russia, Prussia etc. don't like the CS too much however Spain, OE, AH, Japan and more don't hate the CS so I wouldn't say they're an international pariah (at least until the Confederate Civil War after WW1 or the Third American Revolution or the Second American Civil War or something else).

Not unstable? Slaves would still engage in acts of mass sabotage as they did OTL, and though they may be a minority, they were a slim one- they were the majority in 2 states AFAIK, and a large minority in most others.

Because Ohio, NYC and Pacific are completely irrelevant for the US war effort and I would like to remember how long Apartheid lasted in a country where whites were a minority or Rhodesia in their civil war, here Apartheid never ends in the CS unless something very serious happens.

they were still fighting around Washington OTL, too- the battle of Gettysburg took place in 1863. While the CS may advance more, it isn’t so decisive that they’re unbeatable.

That's precisely the problem, until Gettysburg DC was always in danger so if you're taking away your long term chances how do you win the war? At that point victory was all but assured.

Not necessarily. The south advancing further just means they have a temporary advantage- the US still outclasses them in population, industry, etc. All it does is make the CS more of a match.

However in 1861 you don't see how population, industry etc. are preventing the CS from being on the doorstep of your capital so if you can't starve the CS into surrender how are you going to win?

Not necessarily. The south advancing further just means they have a temporary advantage- the US still outclasses them in population, industry, etc. All it does is make the CS more of a match.

That's completely wrong, the UK wasn't militarized, the only thing it did during the Napoleonic wars was supplying their allies but the land army wasn't that present (there were in Iberia and later in Belgium but not particularly militarized); the UK was actually weaker than normally since all of their resources are used in Europe, the only thing that defended Canada were militias and a little bit of soldiers stationed there while the US could throw all of its resources in the war; it was only later that the UK got involved and then it burned down the White House and attempted a landing in New Orleans.

All it does is make the CS a semi-functioning state- the US still outclasses them, as long as Britain doesn’t join, the US wins in the longterm due to sheer economic and military weight. That’s what they would’ve predicted, anyway.

I doubt, the ACW wasn't that one-sided despite all of the US advantages, if you allow GB and France to supply the South it will be extremely difficult since it never gets low on money, food and much more.

Secession could be called the ULTIMATE protest against war- they were clearly willing to violently protest the war, if a guy comes in saying “y know, if we secede, they can’t recruit us” then I wouldn’t say it’s impossible that the rioters are convinced- and the police weren’t enough to settle them down OTL, militias fresh from Gettysburg had to be sent in. If the battle of Gettysburg is lost, those militias aren’t as available- and with a more premeditated plan, a formal secession isn’t implausible. I’d predict that much of the city would still be in Anarchy- but if it deprives the US of their tariffs, its already enough.

I doubt, they could cause significant troubles but they can't do much more than hamper the US war effort, they wouldn't really secede they would strike to get concessions but secession isn't a very likely outcome.

They certainly are. The US would have to send a significant enough force to deal with that large of a territory- that army had to be fed, its ammunition replenished, and its supplies restocked. On small, undeveloped supply lines, what do you think Guerillas are going to do to those supplies?

Not really, the bad infrastructure means there is almost no one, a village of 60 persons can't prevent the passage of 1k men and not everyone will be hostile to the Union.

It’s not going to overtake the US, but it’s significant enough to affect the demographics, culture, and identity of the region- much like the Scottish, Irish, etc on the west coast. With a stronger, more developed identity, it makes the west coast a much more culturally independent region.

There is such an influence because there were a lot of immigrants, Russian, Japanese and Chinese aren't going to be that present.

I wouldn’t say the US is their only trading partner- Britain and France are still on a much larger level than the US, and they have economic interests in the LatAm states.

Not really, the main trading partner of LatAm is the US, GB has other sources of everything the Americas produce and US investors are much interested in the Americas than the British or French one ever will.

The US still doesn’t have anywhere near that type of economic domination over the Americas, especially not with the European great powers still meddling- though I do agree those internal divisions would be painful.

The US would dominate them, not as bad as OTL but still be the dominant basically uncontested master of the Americas.

Lincoln did everything he could during the Trent affair not to bring Britain into the war, such a brash decision would be unlike him- besides, my point is that it’s not at all less likely that the US doesn’t call the bluff- it’s certainly possible under the conditions, even if it’s detrimental to the US- the prospect of Britain joining in is terrifiying.

It may but you don't have any way of being sure that GB won't come back asking more.

That’s if you call their bluff- in the moment, you can’t be sure, and you’d potentially be bringing devastation on your nation. Congress certainly wouldn’t be excited about tempting fate with the Brits.

Congress would be irrelevant, Lincoln is the one who will decide whether listen to Britain or not.

I mean for one, I don’t think they would- they’re not unflinchingly loyal to the CS, and they’d in all likeliness at least put up a face of respecting the agreement with the US, and secondly- they can’t, but diplomacy always requires a degree of trust. Like, any guns sent can’t be British or French models, or else it’s clear that the agreement has been broken and you’d have a reverse Trent affair with the US demanding concessions from Britain, and either way just trade with the CS is enough for France and Britain.

They aren't loyal to the CS, it's simply that the supporting the CS is aligned with your interests while not doing so isn't; France and GB would get cotton but supporting the CS is certainly done one way or the other. There cannot be a reverse Trent because the US has shown that they will bow to Britain's conditions as long as it doesn't join the war meaning that nobody will believe the US diplomat when he says: "Stop supporting the CS or we put back the blockade in place"

They don’t really have a choice- it’s always gone down to this: yes, agreeing to Britains terms is bad for your war effort, but do we really want to risk British intervention, which would make EVERYTHING worse? It’s a game of compromise- though the US obviously won’t be thrilled to agree, if they can extract certain other concessions from Britain in exchange, that’s the best situation they can hope for.

What concessions from Britain? By doing this you have accepted that you are inferior to GB and that you have to bow to its condition.

Germany isn’t in total war against Russia- they’re still producing things of value and have a vast and lucrative empire, they’d last longer than a few years.

It's a total war, if you aren't waging total war in a world war you're going to lose very fast, Germany cannot do anything that is not related to warfare, it would divert crucial resources, look at GB in WW1, it didn't have to import food and raw materials yet it was bankrupting by 1917, same thing for Germany.

It depends on what WW2 starts over- I find it totally implausible that Germany just says “ok, time for war because we said so”- they need some kind of reason, either Russia invading someone or a territorial dispute or something. If anything, I don’t really think this is going to be a total war for either of them- at least, not on the scale of WW1. This isn’t a war of ideology like WW2, so if the war drags on for a while there may just be a compromise deal or white peace.

NO, WW2 is a total war, it's a war to destroy your opponent, saying that they won't have a total war is nonsense, they'll fight to the death like in WW1, a compromise peace is impossible since they will fight until one of the camp collapses and because of the disadvantages of the Germans since they are basically alone against half of Europe.

Russia doesn’t have the engineering drive they got during the USSR; their equipment likely remains inferior for a while.

Germany never had a technological edge in its military, they were leading in science but their military equipment was as good as French or British one.

You still have old guards like Denikin and Wrangel dominating the discussion; talented though Tukhachevsky may be, the Russian Army would be stuck on a doctrine of throwing bodies at the enemy for a while.

If that is true same thing applies to Germany, they still will have their war hero of WW1 in the system who will stick to their old tactics and methods.

It doesn’t matter how large their armies may be if they don’t have sufficiently developed equipment and tactics; Russia would also likely have far less mechanization than OTL.

Their equipment and tactics are on the same level of Germany, the Germans may have a slight advantage but it won't manage to save you once you're outnumbered 3 to 1.

Again, depends on the nature of WW2.

That's some unchangeable facts, you simply don't have the population and total war is inevitable.

Having more industries is a disadvantage? The US provided two-thirds of all military equipment during the war, they already have a vast capability for production- they also have more access to resources than the USSR, thanks to the empires of France and Britain combined.

The empire isn't a force, you have to defend this vast territory for not much resources and the population will seriously rebel against your rule while the Soviets have all resources they could potentially need with them and they have more human resources than you since you'll lose Europe very fast, the UK and the US have no chance to recruit and produce more than the USSR.

They’re not nearly as battered as the USSR is- the Soviets can only last so long on war communism.

War communism has only been used in the RCW, starving peasants to death wasn't used during WW2.

Planes certainly aren’t useless without troops- Japan surrendered without a single soldier on the mainland.

Without troops you couldn't occupy the islands from which you were bombing. Japan was an island with little to no resources, meaning that bombing them was enough to destroy their war effort and it took the Soviet invasion of Manchuria to make Japan capitulate, you need to exploit the advantage in the air with soldiers on the ground.

They had long distance bombers at this point- and given the wide territory Soviet planes have to cover, there’d certainly be a few that slip through.

The Mig-15 was created to counter US bombers.

I feel you’re overestimating Soviet speed here- there’s still a large amount of well supplied and well armed western troops in Europe, they’re not going to get totally overrun.

Those troops had a hard time against the Germans in December 1944 , the Soviets outnumber them two to one, have better equipment and have more experience.

While they certainly wouldn’t win in Europe alone, they’d eventually just starve out the Germans, and would’ve kept bombing them to oblivion throughout the war.

Not really, if Nazi Germany can concentrate all of its resources on fighting the US and UK it wouldn't be crushed, they may have inferior planes but what happened OTL was thanks to Germany being completely busy with the Soviets.

The problem is- what country do you invade? You have no access to China, Korea has been stripped from you, Hawaii is split between Russian and British interests, everything else is colonized… what would they do?

The Spanish Philippines are a nice start, a population that wants independence from the Spanish colonizers and a dying empire defending it.

Pearl Harbour was suicide, too- even if the military isn’t in control of the government, they still decide on military actions, and they could still believe the US would take it lying down.

Even IOTL they understood that fighting both the Soviets and the US is too much and that was while the military controlled the government.

The problem is they’re inherently involved now- they’re an interest of both powers, and it’s only a matter of time until one incident or another brings them into the war.

Both Russia and Germany would do everything not to provoke Britain and Britain doesn't want war, which incident would force them into the war?

??? That’s certainly not impossible, if you have fertile land in your colony and need a domestic food source, then by all means that colony would become your breadbasket.

Mittle Afrika doesn't seem very fertile to me. The point of a colony is to exploit local resources which you don't have at home, you don't want to not exploit the metals and co. to produce food and relying on blacks to do so is not in the mentality of the time.

That doesn’t mean the same will happen decades later.

Colombia, Panama and Ecuador don't seem to have flourishing industries to me, they're also very agrarian.

It’s a different situation- Puerto Rico was conquered, subjugated, Deseret seceded and is an absolute pain to put down- autonomy is how the US deals with them.

Deseret won't surrender at that point, the US just accepting them is impossible and you've also used force to put down Deseret, rewarding the revolutionaries is not the first thing that comes to my mind.

There’d have to be some structural changes after a secession- too many people will be like “hey, this didn’t work.”

It's difficult to change like this, the US would blame the South not its political system.

It gives you an important power base in the eastern Med- why do you think the French and British took it.

For the glory and if they want a base in the Eastern Med Cyprus is largely enough, France wanted the land because Lebanon had ties to France and because expanding your colonial empire is always good, Britain wanted to expand its empire, they didn't need Palestine.

Middle class usually also implies a degree of higher education- merchants and craftsmen may apply, but I guess Kulaks are lower middle class.

Kulaks certainly are not simple peasants so I think that is a good definition.

I’d imagine volunteers would mainly come from the middle or low upper classes- those were the traditional support bases of il Nappy III, who tended to support the confederacy.

The middle and low upper classes don't join the army on the soldier level, those ranks are filled by the poor since the army pays well and you only need to not be disabled to be a soldier.

They would’ve, eventually. They didn’t OTL because it was seen as giving too much power to the North, but for Gran Colombia who doesn’t have much of an established industry the Venezuelan elite may capitalize on it as an additional revenue source.

Additional yes but they would see at as secondary compared to their previous business and Gran Colombian government would be able to get profits from it since giving all to Venezuela is unacceptable.

The nouveau riche didn’t tend to be sent to administer colonies- it was always someone with a noble title.

Depends when.

 

[Krasno]

Then the power of the Tsar is even stronger than OTL since there is no nobility but he doesn't have to make much concessions.

I thought of that- that’s where Michael’s wife, Elena Pavlovna, comes in. See, Michael wasn’t ever really set on the throne OTL, and he won’t be in this TL either; he only throws in his lot because Benckendorff (who is converted into a Decembrist via the Masonic lodge he was a part of) convinces him that inaction will cause a coup of the nobility. Michael was and would’ve been far more interested in the military than politics, but his wife was much more involved in the court- she played a role in urging Alexander II to abolish serfdom. ITTL, she allied herself with the Decembrists to keep Michael focused on military matters, while she and the Decembrists quietly reform Russia behind his back. He would also be quite young by the time he takes power, so he would be more impressionable- and that means he can be influenced.

Anyways the idea of having the military much more angry towards the Tsar still works.

I don’t think that’d work, because who are they mad at? Alexander I? A more radicalized military would work, but hatred for one specific Tsar usually doesn’t fully carry over to the next Tsar- you need them to be mad at the system, not the specific figurehead.

The Pacification of the Pacific Republic, the US wouldn't want to call it a war, they would try to pass it as protests by Southern immigrants instead of a tentative of becoming independent.

“The Frontier Wars” would likely be a colloquial name, people call most any conflict a war.

The first thing they do is strike, if things go wrong there's violence between the police and protestors but I wouldn't call that a tentative to get independence.

You don’t need all that much for independence- they don’t even need all the rioters on their side. All they need is some influential politicians and some form of armed force (which wouldnt be too difficult, considering the circumstances) and NYC tariffs are now blocked from the federal government.

They entered into a larger geopolitical game so obviously Russia, Prussia etc. don't like the CS too much however Spain, OE, AH, Japan and more don't hate the CS so I wouldn't say they're an international pariah (at least until the Confederate Civil War after WW1 or the Third American Revolution or the Second American Civil War or something else).

I meant moreso that they’re an parish among the people of Europe- very few had any sympathies for the CS, and, even if they were allies, the average Brit would have great distaste for the “peculiar institution”

Because Ohio, NYC and Pacific are completely irrelevant for the US war effort

Pacific? Probably. Ohio? Debatable. NYC? Definitely not- in a time before I come taxes, tariffs are the main form of revenue for a government- and NYC accounted for a huge portion of all US tariffs.

and I would like to remember how long Apartheid lasted in a country where whites were a minority or Rhodesia in their civil war, here Apartheid never ends in the CS unless something very serious happens.

I don’t mean to say that the CS immediately collapses, but there’s going to be sabotage and fifth columnists wherever slaves are involved- a system surviving for an amount of time doesn’t mean that system is stable.

That's precisely the problem, until Gettysburg DC was always in danger so if you're taking away your long term chances how do you win the war? At that point victory was all but assured.

For one, I feel the CS doesn’t have the capability to actually fully take DC- and secondly, even if they do, that’s not an immediate loss for the US. Lincoln made it clear that he would take any measure to preserve the Union, so the war continues until extreme discontent rocks the Union.

However in 1861 you don't see how population, industry etc. are preventing the CS from being on the doorstep of your capital so if you can't starve the CS into surrender how are you going to win?

More soldiers, more guns, and more supplies. Britain isn’t going to be subsidizing the entirety of the CS war effort, and when it comes down to spending the US still has a larger purchasing power- not to say the US is all fine and dandy, they’d likely have to put a strain on their economy to increase their efforts, but it would by no means be seen as a lost cause.

That's completely wrong, the UK wasn't militarized, the only thing it did during the Napoleonic wars was supplying their allies but the land army wasn't that present (there were in Iberia and later in Belgium but not particularly militarized); the UK was actually weaker than normally since all of their resources are used in Europe, the only thing that defended Canada were militias and a little bit of soldiers stationed there while the US could throw all of its resources in the war; it was only later that the UK got involved and then it burned down the White House and attempted a landing in New Orleans.

What I mean is the UK was heavily militarized for war, while the US is still relatively weak. In 1812, Napoleon already controlled all of Europe except for Russia- there’s nowhere for British troops TO fight, which is what allowed them to send troops to America. I’m the civil war, it’s the opposite situation- the US is significantly stronger and ready for war, while Britain is in relative peacetime.

I doubt, the ACW wasn't that one-sided despite all of the US advantages, if you allow GB and France to supply the South it will be extremely difficult since it never gets low on money, food and much more.

I doubt France and Britain would aid them to that degree- their main interest is continuing the cotton trade, they don’t particularly care who it comes from. France may send some support, but Britain would only be interested in trade as usual.

I doubt, they could cause significant troubles but they can't do much more than hamper the US war effort, they wouldn't really secede they would strike to get concessions but secession isn't a very likely outcome.

Secession is just a means to an end- they don’t need too many people, just enough to have a weal grasp over the city. The idea was certainly there, and it wouldn’t be too hard to find sympathetic people.

Not really, the bad infrastructure means there is almost no one, a village of 60 persons can't prevent the passage of 1k men and not everyone will be hostile to the Union.

The village can, however, hide Guérillas- and they won’t be fighting the 1k men, they’ll be targeting the supply wagons that come riding behind them, while their allies further on pick off the tired and hungry soldiers.

There is such an influence because there were a lot of immigrants, Russian, Japanese and Chinese aren't going to be that present.

Why not? Under certain conditions increased immigration isn’t impossible.

Not really, the main trading partner of LatAm is the US, GB has other sources of everything the Americas produce and US investors are much interested in the Americas than the British or French one ever will.

It’s not like France is invading Mexico at that very time.

The US would dominate them, not as bad as OTL but still be the dominant basically uncontested master of the Americas.

I wouldn’t say uncontested- they may be the largest force, but they’d certainly have strong competitors. Especially once the CS has cemented itself as an ally of GB, GB could have an interest in backing CS pursuits in the area, especially- and Britain does have interests in the Americas, especially Centroamerica.

It may but you don't have any way of being sure that GB won't come back asking more.

Britains goal here isn’t to split the US- only to continue the cotton trade. If the US respects that, they’re relatively secure.

Congress would be irrelevant, Lincoln is the one who will decide whether listen to Britain or not.

Well, he was quite eager not to anger the British OTL, so there’s that.

They aren't loyal to the CS, it's simply that the supporting the CS is aligned with your interests while not doing so isn't; France and GB would get cotton but supporting the CS is certainly done one way or the other.

Cotton is their interest; the CS is just a source of that, they don’t particularly care if it comes from the US instead- they just don’t want a blockade impeding their trade interests. Once the war is over they’ll probably become strategic allies due to the US being angry at them both- but during the war, all the Europeans care about is that tasty, tasty cotton.

There cannot be a reverse Trent because the US has shown that they will bow to Britain's conditions as long as it doesn't join the war meaning that nobody will believe the US diplomat when he says: "Stop supporting the CS or we put back the blockade in place"

Trent would’ve been a controversial affair, and not one so easily repeated- Britain was only able to do that because it was a “US attack on British sovereignty”, if they are the offending party they would be forced to concede on some points- the CS is widely unpopular in Britain, they can’t come in to their defence if they don’t have a justifiable reason they can give to the public.

What concessions from Britain? By doing this you have accepted that you are inferior to GB and that you have to bow to its condition.

Inferior? No, it shows that you don’t want to offend a formally neutral party, which any power wouldn’t want to do- it would be seen, at least in Britain, as the US rightfully c apologizing for committing an offense against the UK. It’s not just a simple game of “you’re stronger, so I’ll do whatever you say”, the context of the situation matters.

It's a total war, if you aren't waging total war in a world war you're going to lose very fast, Germany cannot do anything that is not related to warfare, it would divert crucial resources, look at GB in WW1, it didn't have to import food and raw materials yet it was bankrupting by 1917, same thing for Germany.

I wouldn’t call their situations the same. Russia isn’t impeding German trade, for one, and Germany doesn’t need to purchase foreign arms to combat Russia- they’re different nations with different situations.

NO, WW2 is a total war, it's a war to destroy your opponent, saying that they won't have a total war is nonsense, they'll fight to the death like in WW1, a compromise peace is impossible since they will fight until one of the camp collapses and because of the disadvantages of the Germans since they are basically alone against half of Europe.

They need a REASON for total war, though- the population nor politicians would accept a total war, which is inherently destructive, for no reason. Germany can’t just go on the offensive against Russia because the high command feels threatened- personally, I don’t think WW2 starts with Germany and Russia. If they do join, it’d be much later in the game.

Germany never had a technological edge in its military, they were leading in science but their military equipment was as good as French or British one.

Key point: British or French. The Russian Empire always traditionally relied on large armies with decent enough equipment, which worked fine in the 1800s- but Russia, even if they match German production, will have trouble supplying and arming their troops to the same quality as Germany’s.

If that is true same thing applies to Germany, they still will have their war hero of WW1 in the system who will stick to their old tactics and methods.

Look at the WW1 tactics of Russia and Germany and see who won out.

Their equipment and tactics are on the same level of Germany, the Germans may have a slight advantage but it won't manage to save you once you're outnumbered 3 to 1.

I really wouldn’t say so. Even if their equipment reaches parity (which I doubt) they’d need to supply their large army with it to make it count- and their tactics are still ruled by the likes of Denison, while even if someone like Hindenburg leads the German army it’s a vast improvement.

That's some unchangeable facts, you simply don't have the population and total war is inevitable.

You make them sound totally outclassed- Russia will not be so perfectly advanced at this point that they fully overwhelm Germany.

The empire isn't a force, you have to defend this vast territory for not much resources and the population will seriously rebel against your rule while the Soviets have all resources they could potentially need with them and they have more human resources than you since you'll lose Europe very fast, the UK and the US have no chance to recruit and produce more than the USSR.

??? Not much resources? The entire continent of Africa and a significant chunk of Asia is “not much resources”?

The Soviets don’t have access to everything they need- they, again, have a severe shortage of Rubber which was largely provided by the US, and if you combine the resources and industries of the US, British, and French Empires then they vastly outnumber the USSR, even in military production- The USSR is in a heavily damaged state, far moreso than any of the WAllies. Like, I’m not saying the USSR is weak by any means, but the USSR can’t hold onto the state they were in in WW2 forever- even Stalins power would eventually collapse.

War communism has only been used in the RCW, starving peasants to death wasn't used during WW2.

Manner of speaking- and the conditions of WW2 weren’t much better.

Without troops you couldn't occupy the islands from which you were bombing. Japan was an island with little to no resources, meaning that bombing them was enough to destroy their war effort and it took the Soviet invasion of Manchuria to make Japan capitulate, you need to exploit the advantage in the air with soldiers on the ground.

But the surrender came before troops even landed- they didn’t need troops on the ground to significantly weaken Japan.

The Mig-15 was created to counter US bombers.

And was only beginning to be rolled out in 1949- how many do you think they’d have?

Those troops had a hard time against the Germans in December 1944 , the Soviets outnumber them two to one, have better equipment and have more experience.

The Soviets were taking huge casualties until the end of the war- they weren’t advancing too easily against Germany, either. They also were not particularly acclimated to the much more mountainous combat that came with the western front- they had largely been fighting on the great European plain.

Not really, if Nazi Germany can concentrate all of its resources on fighting the US and UK it wouldn't be crushed, they may have inferior planes but what happened OTL was thanks to Germany being completely busy with the Soviets.

Germany wouldn’t be able to sustain itself, though- it would collapse probably earlier than the USSR does in this scenario, because they’re just so inherently bad at occupation and compromise that they’d collapse under their own weight eventually- and when the revolts begin, the WAllies would come a-knocking.

That’s the issue when it comes to Autarkic states- yes, you are self-sufficient, but you ultimately have a smaller pool of resources to draw on than those more interconnected with global trade.

The Spanish Philippines are a nice start, a population that wants independence from the Spanish colonizers and a dying empire defending it.

Spanish-Japanese war subplot lmao, that’ll be funny.

Even IOTL they understood that fighting both the Soviets and the US is too much and that was while the military controlled the government.

That’s the problem, though- they were under the illusion that attacking pearl harbour wouldn’t cause a war with the US, just somehow force them to start trading with them again. They could have the same idea ITTL

Both Russia and Germany would do everything not to provoke Britain and Britain doesn't want war, which incident would force them into the war?

Russia and Germany would hardly be so careful if they’re in total war, firstly- and secondly, things are going to escalate- eventually, one sides going to go a step too far with Britain, and that’ll turn out simply wonderful for them.

Mittle Afrika doesn't seem very fertile to me.

Various chunks of Africa (namely Nigeria and Tanzania) are large producers of agricultural products.

The point of a colony is to exploit local resources which you don't have at home,

Which, for Germany, is food.

You don't want to not exploit the metals and co. to produce food

These are not mutually exclusive. Like, it may take away some investment, but if you need food- you need food.

and relying on blacks to do so is not in the mentality of the time.

Like king Leopold didn’t trust the Congolese to collect rubber? Having the natives do the labour is ABSOLUTELY in the mentality of the times. It was a huge driving factor of why colonialism took off in the first place- you can’t immediately have settlers come in, and you need labour- who do you turn to?

Colombia, Panama and Ecuador don't seem to have flourishing industries to me, they're also very agrarian.

I imagine Colombia proper, being the core, would get much more preferential development.

Deseret won't surrender at that point, the US just accepting them is impossible and you've also used force to put down Deseret, rewarding the revolutionaries is not the first thing that comes to my mind.

The US needs a quick win after the civil war- if Deseret and the other states are being a hassle to put down (which they would), a compromise reintegration is a quick, easy win.

It's difficult to change like this, the US would blame the South not its political system.

The fact that the South SUCCEEDED would be blamed on the system, though.

For the glory and if they want a base in the Eastern Med Cyprus is largely enough, France wanted the land because Lebanon had ties to France and because expanding your colonial empire is always good, Britain wanted to expand its empire, they didn't need Palestine.

Would Italy not want “glory”?

Kulaks certainly are not simple peasants so I think that is a good definition.

They largely were smallowners- owning a cow is enough to be a Kulak.

The middle and low upper classes don't join the army on the soldier level, those ranks are filled by the poor since the army pays well and you only need to not be disabled to be a soldier.

They certainly do- especially as volunteers. They aren’t usually conscripted, but for a volunteer drive they’d certainly be soldiers.

Additional yes but they would see at as secondary compared to their previous business and Gran Colombian government would be able to get profits from it since giving all to Venezuela is unacceptable.

The rest of Colombia will likely be more industrialized, honestly.

Depends when.

Even in the 30s-40s colonial governors were always “lords”.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

I thought of that- that’s where Michael’s wife, Elena Pavlovna, comes in. See, Michael wasn’t ever really set on the throne OTL, and he won’t be in this TL either; he only throws in his lot because Benckendorff (who is converted into a Decembrist via the Masonic lodge he was a part of) convinces him that inaction will cause a coup of the nobility. Michael was and would’ve been far more interested in the military than politics, but his wife was much more involved in the court- she played a role in urging Alexander II to abolish serfdom. ITTL, she allied herself with the Decembrists to keep Michael focused on military matters, while she and the Decembrists quietly reform Russia behind his back. He would also be quite young by the time he takes power, so he would be more impressionable- and that means he can be influenced.

If he's focused on the military it would probably be much better than IOTL Crimean war, also no matter how influent other persons in the court are the king would be involved, their strategy would be to influence his decisions towards liberalization, if he decides to participate in a coup he definitely has ambitions on the Imperial throne.

I don’t think that’d work, because who are they mad at? Alexander I? A more radicalized military would work, but hatred for one specific Tsar usually doesn’t fully carry over to the next Tsar- you need them to be mad at the system, not the specific figurehead.

They were mad IOTL, they considered the Tsar to be incompetent that's why they wanted change.

“The Frontier Wars” would likely be a colloquial name, people call most any conflict a war.

The Frontier wars was a war in Australia with indigenous tribes, I don't see why you would call the Pacific rebellion something else than a side show in the ACW (from the Confederate side it's the Second American Revolution but for the US it was a Civil War).

You don’t need all that much for independence- they don’t even need all the rioters on their side. All they need is some influential politicians and some form of armed force (which wouldnt be too difficult, considering the circumstances) and NYC tariffs are now blocked from the federal government.

The problem is that NYC has no army, it has the police at best, they could block NYC for a while but that's not secession that's an anti-war protest.

I meant moreso that they’re an parish among the people of Europe- very few had any sympathies for the CS, and, even if they were allies, the average Brit would have great distaste for the “peculiar institution”

Common people wouldn't care about the CS, just like they turn a blind eye towards what their countries do in their colonies, the only one who would care about that would be the US who will use it as propaganda.

I don’t mean to say that the CS immediately collapses, but there’s going to be sabotage and fifth columnists wherever slaves are involved- a system surviving for an amount of time doesn’t mean that system is stable.

Unfortunately humans are very good at oppressing despised persons, pretty much any colonial empire survived despite being terribly outnumbered in population when you look at non-whites vs whites yet they survived for a very long time, Apartheid, Belgian Congo etc. and here slaves aren't the majority of the population.

For one, I feel the CS doesn’t have the capability to actually fully take DC- and secondly, even if they do, that’s not an immediate loss for the US. Lincoln made it clear that he would take any measure to preserve the Union, so the war continues until extreme discontent rocks the Union.

DC would be a terrible blow to morale.

More soldiers, more guns, and more supplies. Britain isn’t going to be subsidizing the entirety of the CS war effort, and when it comes down to spending the US still has a larger purchasing power- not to say the US is all fine and dandy, they’d likely have to put a strain on their economy to increase their efforts, but it would by no means be seen as a lost cause.

Not a lost cause but a significantly more difficult, more time consuming and bloody one.

What I mean is the UK was heavily militarized for war, while the US is still relatively weak. In 1812, Napoleon already controlled all of Europe except for Russia- there’s nowhere for British troops TO fight, which is what allowed them to send troops to America. I’m the civil war, it’s the opposite situation- the US is significantly stronger and ready for war, while Britain is in relative peacetime.

That's completely wrong, British troops were fighting in Iberia; Britain was uncapable of sending anything to Canada because of the war, the US lost the fight against what was in Canada before the war + a few British ships which could be diverted. The UK is in a much better situation than the US since:

1. They're n.1 power in the world (while in 1812 they were significantly weaker)
2. They're not in the middle of a civil war
3. US troops (just as CS) are militias, not made for offensive operations as shown in the ACW which means the US has no serious force to divert to Canada, conscripting more militias will make your army even more incompetent and uncontrollable than in 1812.

I doubt France and Britain would aid them to that degree- their main interest is continuing the cotton trade, they don’t particularly care who it comes from. France may send some support, but Britain would only be interested in trade as usual.

They would both support to some extent but trade is enough to get everything you could ever need, you sell cotton and you buy food and other.

Secession is just a means to an end- they don’t need too many people, just enough to have a weal grasp over the city. The idea was certainly there, and it wouldn’t be too hard to find sympathetic people.

It is, immigrants in NYC didn't came there to die fighting for independence, they came there for the American dream.

The village can, however, hide Guérillas- and they won’t be fighting the 1k men, they’ll be targeting the supply wagons that come riding behind them, while their allies further on pick off the tired and hungry soldiers.

They would annoy the armies passing but they won't be able to do more than slow them down a little bit.

Why not? Under certain conditions increased immigration isn’t impossible.

Unless very special conditions immigration to the extent of the East Coast is unlikely.

It’s not like France is invading Mexico at that very time.

It was invading Mexico for the glory, basically just because Nap III wanted to; they didn't have much trade with Mexico it's just that Mexico had a debt with France (and GB) and that was a casus belli.

I wouldn’t say uncontested- they may be the largest force, but they’d certainly have strong competitors. Especially once the CS has cemented itself as an ally of GB, GB could have an interest in backing CS pursuits in the area, especially- and Britain does have interests in the Americas, especially Centroamerica.

After WW1 there's no significant power that will prevent the US from dominating the Americas unless you create one.

Britains goal here isn’t to split the US- only to continue the cotton trade. If the US respects that, they’re relatively secure.

Having an independent CS is an idea they aren't insensible to, they want cotton trade but an independent CS is much easier to have cotton trade and at a lesser price; some in Britain were willing to go to war with the US to get an independent CS.

Cotton is their interest; the CS is just a source of that, they don’t particularly care if it comes from the US instead- they just don’t want a blockade impeding their trade interests. Once the war is over they’ll probably become strategic allies due to the US being angry at them both- but during the war, all the Europeans care about is that tasty, tasty cotton.

They were seriously considering to go to war with the US to get cotton, not only cotton, an independent CS also is much more useful than it being a part of the US, supporting the CS is the choice they would prefer.

Trent would’ve been a controversial affair, and not one so easily repeated- Britain was only able to do that because it was a “US attack on British sovereignty”, if they are the offending party they would be forced to concede on some points- the CS is widely unpopular in Britain, they can’t come in to their defence if they don’t have a justifiable reason they can give to the public.

The people may not be enthusiastic but the politicians were very eager to support the CS.

Inferior? No, it shows that you don’t want to offend a formally neutral party, which any power wouldn’t want to do- it would be seen, at least in Britain, as the US rightfully c apologizing for committing an offense against the UK. It’s not just a simple game of “you’re stronger, so I’ll do whatever you say”, the context of the situation matters.

We all know Britain wasn't here because you offended a neutral party but because they want to support the CS, by doing this you have shown weakness, one thing is apologizing for the Trent affair another one is giving concessions to a neutral party who has nothing to do with the war.

I wouldn’t call their situations the same. Russia isn’t impeding German trade, for one, and Germany doesn’t need to purchase foreign arms to combat Russia- they’re different nations with different situations.

Britain wasn't prevented from doing trade, it had a few problems with the German navy but for the most part they were allowed to yet by 1917 despite being the biggest empire on Earth and having an economic dominance it was bankrupting. Britain mostly had its own production of arms and Germany needs to import a lot of food and raw materials to continue its war effort.

They need a REASON for total war, though- the population nor politicians would accept a total war, which is inherently destructive, for no reason. Germany can’t just go on the offensive against Russia because the high command feels threatened- personally, I don’t think WW2 starts with Germany and Russia. If they do join, it’d be much later in the game.

Was the shotting of the Archduke a good reason to go to war? There would be a heightening of tensions up until the point where war breaks out, it doesn't matter how but once you declared war to each other you can't go at it half-heartedly.

Key point: British or French. The Russian Empire always traditionally relied on large armies with decent enough equipment, which worked fine in the 1800s- but Russia, even if they match German production, will have trouble supplying and arming their troops to the same quality as Germany’s.

That changes, we're not talking about OTL Russia.

Look at the WW1 tactics of Russia and Germany and see who won out.

That's OTL Russia.

I really wouldn’t say so. Even if their equipment reaches parity (which I doubt) they’d need to supply their large army with it to make it count- and their tactics are still ruled by the likes of Denison, while even if someone like Hindenburg leads the German army it’s a vast improvement.

They produce much more than Germany does, OTL USSR produced enough equipment with its most valuable land in enemy hands yet the Germans never stood a chance.

You make them sound totally outclassed- Russia will not be so perfectly advanced at this point that they fully overwhelm Germany.

Germany has food and money issues which Russia doesn't have, at least not to Germany's extent.

??? Not much resources? The entire continent of Africa and a significant chunk of Asia is “not much resources”?

Compared to how much resources are needed to maintain them yes, it puts a strain on your already limited human resources.

The Soviets don’t have access to everything they need- they, again, have a severe shortage of Rubber which was largely provided by the US, and if you combine the resources and industries of the US, British, and French Empires then they vastly outnumber the USSR, even in military production- The USSR is in a heavily damaged state, far moreso than any of the WAllies. Like, I’m not saying the USSR is weak by any means, but the USSR can’t hold onto the state they were in in WW2 forever- even Stalins power would eventually collapse.

They have no way of winning Europe will be lost in the short term and yes theoretically if the Allies continue the war forever they will win since they have more resources than the USSR however we're talking about the extremely long run, once the Soviets have conquered all of Europe a D-day landing is not feasible and other fronts of the war would also go very badly (I doubt South Korea will last very long), despite all of your advantages on paper, you still have to find a way to recruit more troops than the Soviets, continue on war time economy and manage to crush the Soviets so badly that D-Day 2.0 is possible, even IOTL it wasn't an easy task so we're talking about almost ASB camp and that is not counting the dissatisfaction in the US and UK because the war would be so destructive, bloody and difficult, there's a reason they called it Operation Unthinkable.

Manner of speaking- and the conditions of WW2 weren’t much better.

But the US population isn't ready for total war, they had a fuss over Vietnam and that was with 58 000 casualties.

But the surrender came before troops even landed- they didn’t need troops on the ground to significantly weaken Japan.

Japan is not like the Soviet Union, Japan cannot sustain a war effort once you've prevented shipping and it took also a Soviet intervention on land to convince them all was lost, air forces are a support for ground forces, alone it cannot win.

And was only beginning to be rolled out in 1949- how many do you think they’d have?

How many do you think they can produce if they go full on it?

The Soviets were taking huge casualties until the end of the war- they weren’t advancing too easily against Germany, either. They also were not particularly acclimated to the much more mountainous combat that came with the western front- they had largely been fighting on the great European plain.

That's because most Germans were fighting the Soviets and because Stalin decided to rush to Berlin but they never had difficulties in beating the Germans in the way the US had. And mountainous terrain is an advantage for the defender.

Germany wouldn’t be able to sustain itself, though- it would collapse probably earlier than the USSR does in this scenario, because they’re just so inherently bad at occupation and compromise that they’d collapse under their own weight eventually- and when the revolts begin, the WAllies would come a-knocking.

That’s the issue when it comes to Autarkic states- yes, you are self-sufficient, but you ultimately have a smaller pool of resources to draw on than those more interconnected with global trade.

Germany would've been able to last a significant amount of time, except for Yugoslavia resistance movement were an annoyance to the occupiers more than a real threat, Germany would've been able at preventing any landing and they would invest much more in the Luftwaffe if they don't go after the Soviets, ah also the Soviets are selling resources to the Germans up until the point Stalin decides to join the war.

Spanish-Japanese war subplot lmao, that’ll be funny.

I doubt that Spain would be very able to fight for them unless they are doing better than OTL and have a significant navy because we can say everything we want about Japan but the IJN will be able to beat Spain.

That’s the problem, though- they were under the illusion that attacking pearl harbour wouldn’t cause a war with the US, just somehow force them to start trading with them again. They could have the same idea ITTL

AFAIK the Japanese expected the US to be extremely weak willed and just surrender once they suffer a few defeats, even they knew that a prolonged war wouldn't be very good.

Russia and Germany would hardly be so careful if they’re in total war, firstly- and secondly, things are going to escalate- eventually, one sides going to go a step too far with Britain, and that’ll turn out simply wonderful for them.

How will they provoke GB? It's not like there's going to be some Trent affair or something, they will let Britain alone as long as it lets them fight in peace, there's no "going too far".

Various chunks of Africa (namely Nigeria and Tanzania) are large producers of agricultural products.

Nigeria is British and Tanzania:

The variety of soils in mainland Tanzania surpasses that of any other country in Africa. The reddish brown soils of volcanic origin in the highland areas are the most fertile. Many river basins also have fertile soils, but they are subject to flooding and require drainage control. The red and yellow tropical loams of the interior plateaus, on the other hand, are of moderate-to-poor fertility. In these regions, high temperatures and low rainfall encourage rapid rates of oxidation, which result in a low humus content in the soil and, consequently, a clayey texture rather than the desired crumblike structure of temperate soils. Also, tropical downpours, often short in duration but very intense, compact the soil; this causes drainage problems and leaches the soil of nutrients.

Tanzania | Culture, Religion, Population, Language, & People

Tanzania, East African country situated just south of the Equator. Tanzania was formed as a sovereign state in 1964 through the union of the theretofore separate states of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Learn more about Tanzania’s people, economy, culture, history, and government here.

www.britannica.com

doesn't seem that appealing and they had Tanzania before WW1 but it was an unprofitable colony.

Which, for Germany, is food.

And metals, rubber, oil... They lack a lot of resources.

These are not mutually exclusive. Like, it may take away some investment, but if you need food- you need food.

They may not realize fully how much they need, WW1 they did fine so it wouldn't be seen as an existential issue.

Like king Leopold didn’t trust the Congolese to collect rubber? Having the natives do the labour is ABSOLUTELY in the mentality of the times. It was a huge driving factor of why colonialism took off in the first place- you can’t immediately have settlers come in, and you need labour- who do you turn to?

Farming is something privileged, settlers are preferable to do that, blacks don't do labour they do the dirty labour no one wants to do, no colonist wants to go in mines or produce rubber.

I imagine Colombia proper, being the core, would get much more preferential development.

It may be better than Venezuela but seeing OTL development I wouldn't say they had an industrialist tendency.

The US needs a quick win after the civil war- if Deseret and the other states are being a hassle to put down (which they would), a compromise reintegration is a quick, easy win.

They would conquer the Pacific, claim victory and never talk to anyone about was is going on in Deseret, the rebels aren't likely to compromise at that point.

The fact that the South SUCCEEDED would be blamed on the system, though.

Or on the military or GB, sure there will be people who ask themselves what could've been done better but most want to forget about what happened.

Would Italy not want “glory”?

Yes but Dalmatia is more important for glory, Italy has obtained the Horn of Africa, Libya and Tunisia, Syria won't be the first thing they're eying and Russia would prefer having it if possible.

They certainly do- especially as volunteers. They aren’t usually conscripted, but for a volunteer drive they’d certainly be soldiers.

That's assuming it's even allowed to send "volunteers" there won't be much true volunteers since most people who have reasons to join the army will join the army, most people don't want to go on the battlefield if avoidable.

The rest of Colombia will likely be more industrialized, honestly.

OTL doesn't really suggest this.

 

[Krasno]

If he's focused on the military it would probably be much better than IOTL Crimean war,

A better showing in the Crimean war could be the reason Russia keeps Alaska, so there’s a plus.

also no matter how influent other persons in the court are the king would be involved, their strategy would be to influence his decisions towards liberalization, if he decides to participate in a coup he definitely has ambitions on the Imperial throne.

Michael only really participated in the coup ITTL because he’s convinced by the Decembrists that inaction means the nobility conspire to take power- in truth, none of the brothers of Alexander I wanted the throne- Michael really only comes to power because he stakes a claim and his brothers are relieved that they’re not the ones in charge. It’s definitely not unheard of that kings be unenthusiastic about ruling- look at Michael of Romania, for example. He’d definitely be nudged by the court, but he largely gets sidelined from politics.

They were mad IOTL, they considered the Tsar to be incompetent that's why they wanted change.

They need to be mad at the institution, though, not the tsar; otherwise their goals are just to replace the Tsar.

The Frontier wars was a war in Australia with indigenous tribes,

Like that’s stopped people before- it’d likely just be called the American Frontier War- the west was the frontier at the time, so a conflict there would be thought of as happening in the frontier.

I don't see why you would call the Pacific rebellion something else than a side show in the ACW (from the Confederate side it's the Second American Revolution but for the US it was a Civil War).

It IS a sideshow of the ACW, but that’s a bit too much of a mouthful for people to call it- given that it’s so disconnected from the rest of the conflict, it’d likely have its own name.

The problem is that NYC has no army, it has the police at best, they could block NYC for a while but that's not secession that's an anti-war protest.

All that changes here is that they officially secede- the reality on the ground is just chaos, but even just a de jure secession makes the desired effect.

Common people wouldn't care about the CS, just like they turn a blind eye towards what their countries do in their colonies, the only one who would care about that would be the US who will use it as propaganda.

They do- by this time, slavery had officially been abolished in most European empires, while the CS practiced the much more extreme “chattel slavery”. Popular opinion in Europe was certainly on the side of the union.

Unfortunately humans are very good at oppressing despised persons, pretty much any colonial empire survived despite being terribly outnumbered in population when you look at non-whites vs whites yet they survived for a very long time, Apartheid, Belgian Congo etc. and here slaves aren't the majority of the population.

The difference is that slaves played a pivotal role for the CS war effort- they tried sabotaging it OTL, why wouldn’t they here?

DC would be a terrible blow to morale.

The US IS supposed to lose here- the continuous loss of morale is what eventually collapses the US from the inside.

Not a lost cause but a significantly more difficult, more time consuming and bloody one.

That’s something Lincoln made clear he was willing to undertake.

That's completely wrong, British troops were fighting in Iberia; Britain was uncapable of sending anything to Canada because of the war,

Oops, I did forget about that- but the British also largely relied on militias, they wouldn’t have been able to hold Canada with just their local forces.

They're n.1 power in the world (while in 1812 they were significantly weaker)

But they aren’t geared towards a full scaled war- they’re in peacetime ATTP.

They're not in the middle of a civil war

That’s a disadvantage for them- the civil war meant the US had a massive army and a population eager to fight- the same is not true for Britain.

US troops (just as CS) are militias, not made for offensive operations as shown in the ACW which means the US has no serious force to divert to Canada, conscripting more militias will make your army even more incompetent and uncontrollable than in 1812.

They had soldiers stationed in the north OTL, especially after the Trent affair- the ACW was also largely the first modern war, which the US had been fighting for a while- they had an advantage of experience the British don’t.

They would both support to some extent but trade is enough to get everything you could ever need, you sell cotton and you buy food and other.

The US makes MORE than the CS when it comes to trade, though- they produce more and export more, while the CS’ only product is cotton- if the price drops, so does their economy.

It is, immigrants in NYC didn't came there to die fighting for independence, they came there for the American dream.

Most of the rioters in NYC WERE immigrants- primarily Irish ones, who didn’t want to fight in the civil war and were upset about black people being exempt from drafting. The secession would be viewed largely as a way to resist drafting in NYC, I don’t think it was ever intended to last after the ACW.

They would annoy the armies passing but they won't be able to do more than slow them down a little bit.

I do feel you’re underestimating the role logistics play. If you can’t eat, you can’t fight. Especially with the size of the army the US would need to pacify that large a territory- I feel they’d fail in their first few attempts until a settlement is reached. This isn’t mentioning all the soldiers dying from disease, temperature, etc.

Unless very special conditions immigration to the extent of the East Coast is unlikely.

People in need + economic opportunities = immigrants. It doesn’t take much.

It was invading Mexico for the glory, basically just because Nap III wanted to; they didn't have much trade with Mexico it's just that Mexico had a debt with France (and GB) and that was a casus belli.

He wanted to establish a French presence in the Americas- if you have economic opportunities in the new world, you don’t pass that up.

After WW1 there's no significant power that will prevent the US from dominating the Americas unless you create one.

That’s after WW1- before then, they’re in direct competition with European powers, and even afterwards the various states of the Americas now have independent foreign policy from America.

Having an independent CS is an idea they aren't insensible to, they want cotton trade but an independent CS is much easier to have cotton trade and at a lesser price; some in Britain were willing to go to war with the US to get an independent CS.

There were equally as many supporting the US- and the CS isn’t convenient enough that they’d put their cards behind it. If they openly and extensively support the CS only for them to lose it would mean an America out for blood- and a Britain lacking its cotton trade. It’s much more likely they take a “wait and see” attitude until the end of the war.

They were seriously considering to go to war with the US to get cotton,

Because the US blockade was stopping it.

not only cotton, an independent CS also is much more useful than it being a part of the US, supporting the CS is the choice they would prefer.

Britain wouldn’t consider that risk worth it until the war is already decisively lost for the US- until the CS wins, they’re not worth risking economic sanction by the US.

The people may not be enthusiastic but the politicians were very eager to support the CS.

I wouldn’t say the opinions of the politicians were so resolute- there were plenty of British politicians who found the south’s chattel slavery disgusting, and the UK had a strong diplomatic mission from the US, too- the UK isn’t itching to support the CS.

We all know Britain wasn't here because you offended a neutral party but because they want to support the CS, by doing this you have shown weakness, one thing is apologizing for the Trent affair another one is giving concessions to a neutral party who has nothing to do with the war.

That WAS the reason they were there, though- the UK wanted to stay neutral, and they had a right as a neutral party to receive diplomatic missions from who they wish- something the US was also doing and had interrupted due to the Trent affair- this isn’t a moment of US weakness, it’s a show of incompetence, a diplomatic blunder which allowed the UK to alleviate its cotton concerns.

Britain wasn't prevented from doing trade, it had a few problems with the German navy but for the most part they were allowed to yet by 1917 despite being the biggest empire on Earth and having an economic dominance it was bankrupting. Britain mostly had its own production of arms and Germany needs to import a lot of food and raw materials to continue its war effort.

They won’t be suffering any more than Russia with their imports- most of what they need comes from the empire, including food- international trade is only used to remedy what’s missing, namely oil.

Was the shotting of the Archduke a good reason to go to war? There would be a heightening of tensions up until the point where war breaks out, it doesn't matter how but once you declared war to each other you can't go at it half-heartedly.

For Austria it certainly was- and they didn’t exactly intend a world war by doing it. Everyone was counting on the other guy not being called in- and the situations of WW1 and this worlds WW2 are vastly different. This isn’t a network of alliances- it’s two hegemons facing off- the situation and its outcome is obvious to everyone, and there’d develop a significant amount of politicians and people who want to avoid that. Germany isn’t rushing into war headfirst because they’ve largely already achieved their place in the sun- they have a massive empire, economically dominate a good chunk of the world, and have vast political influence. Russia is the greatest threat, but they are hesitant to come to hostilities over it.

That changes, we're not talking about OTL Russia.

Their military tactics aren’t significantly changed- they worked in the 1800’s, there’s no reason for them to change.

That's OTL Russia.

The same commanders and the same theory is in place- there’s not much stimulating change here.

They produce much more than Germany does, OTL USSR produced enough equipment with its most valuable land in enemy hands yet the Germans never stood a chance.

The USSR enacted very specific policies to rush industrialization. OTL Russia is NOT the same as the Soviet Union, they’re fundamentally different in every aspect- you can’t compare the two. They’re still much more similar to the Russian Empire of 1914 than the USSR of 1941.

Germany has food and money issues which Russia doesn't have, at least not to Germany's extent.

Germany by all means has deeper pockets than Russia, and their food is largely imported from their empire. Germany isn’t a pushover.

Compared to how much resources are needed to maintain them yes, it puts a strain on your already limited human resources.

They needed very little in terms of actual presence there. They had a governor, some bureaucrats and a piecemeal colonial force- but they largely relied on native conscripts and collaborators to rule themselves. The empires knew how to run their colonies in the most profitable way possible.

They have no way of winning Europe will be lost in the short term and yes theoretically if the Allies continue the war forever they will win since they have more resources than the USSR however we're talking about the extremely long run, once the Soviets have conquered all of Europe a D-day landing is not feasible and other fronts of the war would also go very badly (I doubt South Korea will last very long), despite all of your advantages on paper, you still have to find a way to recruit more troops than the Soviets, continue on war time economy and manage to crush the Soviets so badly that D-Day 2.0 is possible, even IOTL it wasn't an easy task so we're talking about almost ASB camp and that is not counting the dissatisfaction in the US and UK because the war would be so destructive, bloody and difficult, there's a reason they called it Operation Unthinkable.

I said before that dissastifaction would cause the end of the war in the Soviets favour- but the Soviets would be defeated longterm no matter what, the casualties and destruction they endure after yet another massive war is too large a strain on them to bear.

But the US population isn't ready for total war, they had a fuss over Vietnam and that was with 58 000 casualties.

They were already halfway there- they were by no means in a peacetime economy, and were already producing more than the USSR was. The surviving soviet industries trucked along enough to defeat and out produce the Nazis- but they WERE heavily damaged, and that was the Nazis- the US ALREADY far out produced them.

Japan is not like the Soviet Union, Japan cannot sustain a war effort once you've prevented shipping and it took also a Soviet intervention on land to convince them all was lost, air forces are a support for ground forces, alone it cannot win.

The Soviets quickened their surrender, but the WAllies don’t NEED to step foot on Manchuria for Japan to surrender- the war was already lost by that point.

How many do you think they can produce if they go full on it?

Not many, considering they still lack rubber and they’re exhausted after what is now almost a decade of continuous war.

That's because most Germans were fighting the Soviets and because Stalin decided to rush to Berlin but they never had difficulties in beating the Germans in the way the US had.

I can just as easily reference the German success in 1945 against the Soviets- the Bulge DID end in an allied victory, and their initial struggles were largely due to overconfidence and poor reconnaissance. The Germans used their advantages where they had them, that doesn’t speak for the quality of whichever army they were fighting.

Like, don’t get me wrong, the Soviets by far played the much larger role against the Nazis than the WAllies, but that’s not due to WAllied incompetence.

And mountainous terrain is an advantage for the defender.

The allies control the mountains- once the Soviets are on the offensive, they’re the defenders.

Germany would've been able to last a significant amount of time, except for Yugoslavia resistance movement were an annoyance to the occupiers more than a real threat, Germany would've been able at preventing any landing and they would invest much more in the Luftwaffe if they don't go after the Soviets, ah also the Soviets are selling resources to the Germans up until the point Stalin decides to join the war.

People have said this before but a Nazi Germany that doesn’t inevitably fight the USSR isn’t Nazi Germany- anticommunismes and a war against the USSR was an inherent part of their ideology- and even in the case of them somehow not fighting the Soviets, and the even more unlikely case that Stalin doesn’t decide to enact his own Barbarossa once his army reform is complete, Germany is going to fall regardless- the longer the Nazis brutally occupy Europe, the stronger the resistance movements get- combined with the blockade by Britain, they aren’t long for this world.

I doubt that Spain would be very able to fight for them unless they are doing better than OTL and have a significant navy because we can say everything we want about Japan but the IJN will be able to beat Spain.

That is true. It mostly depends on the international reaction, though.

AFAIK the Japanese expected the US to be extremely weak willed and just surrender once they suffer a few defeats, even they knew that a prolonged war wouldn't be very good.

I don’t think they EXPECT a prolonged war in this case, either.

How will they provoke GB? It's not like there's going to be some Trent affair or something, they will let Britain alone as long as it lets them fight in peace, there's no "going too far".

As in, the more desperate each country gets, the sooner they start trying to block their access to British supplies- a pearl harbour is going to happen.

Nigeria is British

If they can sell Vancouver, it’s not impossible they sell a few African colonies.

and Tanzania:

Tanzania | Culture, Religion, Population, Language, & People

Tanzania, East African country situated just south of the Equator. Tanzania was formed as a sovereign state in 1964 through the union of the theretofore separate states of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Learn more about Tanzania’s people, economy, culture, history, and government here.

www.britannica.com

doesn't seem that appealing and they had Tanzania before WW1 but it was an unprofitable colony.

I wouldn’t call Tanzania unprofitable, nor unappealing- its main use to Germany, in fact, was the cultivation of various cash crops. There wasn’t much food grown there- but there’s certainly the opportunity for it.

And metals, rubber, oil... They lack a lot of resources.

The only thing they significantly lack is oil- they get both of the others in droves from their African colonies, especially the Congo.

They may not realize fully how much they need, WW1 they did fine so it wouldn't be seen as an existential issue.

If their main trade partner for food, Russia, is becoming their obvious enemy- yeah, they’re gonna want to find an alternative source of food. If they continue to rely on Russia for it, then a war won’t happen.

Farming is something privileged, settlers are preferable to do that, blacks don't do labour they do the dirty labour no one wants to do, no colonist wants to go in mines or produce rubber.

The white settlers would OWN the farms- but the ones doing all the labour, the farmhands, are native. That was the case for most every OTL colonial agricultural venture- I don’t know where you got the idea that the colonies only ever provided their metals or minerals, colonial farms were more than common- not just food, but cash crops of all types (which is how the cotton plantations of the south began).

It may be better than Venezuela but seeing OTL development I wouldn't say they had an industrialist tendency.

The OTL development of each country and the development of a united Gran Colombia is bound to differ.

They would conquer the Pacific, claim victory and never talk to anyone about was is going on in Deseret, the rebels aren't likely to compromise at that point.

If the US has turned their attention on them, they wouldn’t have illusions about who wins in the long run- the US would likely fail the first couple of times, so it’s better for them to negotiate while they have the chance.

Or on the military or GB, sure there will be people who ask themselves what could've been done better but most want to forget about what happened.

People aren’t going to “forget” the civil war- they’re going to want change. They’re going to be angry.

Yes but Dalmatia is more important for glory, Italy has obtained the Horn of Africa, Libya and Tunisia, Syria won't be the first thing they're eying and Russia would prefer having it if possible.

They’ll still GET Dalmatia- it’s not something Russia offers, it’s something Italy receives from the start- no question. I posit that Russia offers Syria in exchange for Italian support/acquiescence on another issue, like the formation of Yugoslavia or Italian neutrality in the Balkans.

That's assuming it's even allowed to send "volunteers" there won't be much true volunteers since most people who have reasons to join the army will join the army, most people don't want to go on the battlefield if avoidable.

If a person specifically supports the confederate cause, they’re not going to join the arm where they’ll be sent to Mexico- they’ll join a volunteer group to go and fight for the CS.

OTL doesn't really suggest this.

Venezuela is largely similar to the US south- reliant on agriculture until sweet oil is found.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

A better showing in the Crimean war could be the reason Russia keeps Alaska, so there’s a plus.

Fact is that if they do better it's significantly worse for the Ottomans, apart from the Crimean front the other ones IOTL were a draw up until the end of the war where the Russians took Kars (which was a bargaining chip for negotiations since they then occupied more land than the Franco-British force in Crimea), if the army is significantly better then the Ottomans would have a lot of problems and it would take the Austrians intervening to agree to a white peace. The end result will be the same (a draw) but in peace negotiations the treaty will likely be much more of a white peace than France and Britain would've hoped which could be an interesting chapter I have to say.

Michael only really participated in the coup ITTL because he’s convinced by the Decembrists that inaction means the nobility conspire to take power- in truth, none of the brothers of Alexander I wanted the throne- Michael really only comes to power because he stakes a claim and his brothers are relieved that they’re not the ones in charge. It’s definitely not unheard of that kings be unenthusiastic about ruling- look at Michael of Romania, for example. He’d definitely be nudged by the court, but he largely gets sidelined from politics.

Once you've decided to take the throne you can't be completely inactive, he certainly won't be the most present ruler but he wouldn't be completely sidelined and it's much easier for the coupers to influence the Tsar than to rule themselves since that could be a reason for a coup.

It IS a sideshow of the ACW, but that’s a bit too much of a mouthful for people to call it- given that it’s so disconnected from the rest of the conflict, it’d likely have its own name.

Just as you have the NYC riots and the Ohio strikes, you have the Mormon rebellion and the Pacific insurrection, no reason to call it a separate conflict.

They do- by this time, slavery had officially been abolished in most European empires, while the CS practiced the much more extreme “chattel slavery”. Popular opinion in Europe was certainly on the side of the union.

Popular opinion is more neutral than that, sure slavery is bad but they aren't very concerned about what is going on, the world is much less connected than that.

The difference is that slaves played a pivotal role for the CS war effort- they tried sabotaging it OTL, why wouldn’t they here?

They would but unfortunately a slave state like the CS won't be that unstable, as long as the CS doesn't outright collapse blacks will have a hard time.

The US IS supposed to lose here- the continuous loss of morale is what eventually collapses the US from the inside.

I doubt it would collapse like this, I would expect that the Republicans cannot continue the war anymore due to a lot of pressure inside from the people who are tired of the war and outside from GB.

That’s something Lincoln made clear he was willing to undertake.

He maybe but others might not think the same.

Oops, I did forget about that- but the British also largely relied on militias, they wouldn’t have been able to hold Canada with just their local forces.

They did so in 1812 while the US wasn't distracted with most of its troops fighting around DC, the only thing the US can call are militiamen with no training while Canada has some professional troops and militias are OK when defending, especially if against other militias.

But they aren’t geared towards a full scaled war- they’re in peacetime ATTP.

Because the US is while it's having difficulties fighting the CS? And I would like to remember you that a few years before the UK was participating in the Crimean War, so I wouldn't say they aren't ready for war.

That’s a disadvantage for them- the civil war meant the US had a massive army and a population eager to fight- the same is not true for Britain.

The civil war meant that your troops are for the most part busy fighting with the CS, an invasion of Canada would be done with conscripted militiamen who have no training and will be uncontrollable during operations. Most of the UK would prefer not having to fight the US but they can if they have to and the US has a population which is more and more eager to end the war in your TL.

They had soldiers stationed in the north OTL, especially after the Trent affair- the ACW was also largely the first modern war, which the US had been fighting for a while- they had an advantage of experience the British don’t.

AFAIK the first Modern War is the Crimean War and there have been a lot of conflicts during Victoria's reign.

The US makes MORE than the CS when it comes to trade, though- they produce more and export more, while the CS’ only product is cotton- if the price drops, so does their economy.

Much better than cotton being unsold and a lot of resources wasted on extracting it I would say, unlike OTL they're making money.

Most of the rioters in NYC WERE immigrants- primarily Irish ones, who didn’t want to fight in the civil war and were upset about black people being exempt from drafting. The secession would be viewed largely as a way to resist drafting in NYC, I don’t think it was ever intended to last after the ACW.

But the Irish won't fight to get the city of Tri-Insula, they strike for some reason but they don't fight for independence.

People in need + economic opportunities = immigrants. It doesn’t take much.

The same ideas are in the heads of many citizens of the US, Japanese, Chinese and Russians have much more difficulties to get to California and the US is motivated by Manifest of Destiny.

He wanted to establish a French presence in the Americas- if you have economic opportunities in the new world, you don’t pass that up.

He just wanted the glory of another victory, he didn't really care about what happens after he wins.

That’s after WW1- before then, they’re in direct competition with European powers, and even afterwards the various states of the Americas now have independent foreign policy from America.

Even IOTL the LatAm states have the right to make its own foreign policy but they will still be in the US sphere of influence since supporting a coup is often not too difficult if someone proves to be annoying.

There were equally as many supporting the US- and the CS isn’t convenient enough that they’d put their cards behind it. If they openly and extensively support the CS only for them to lose it would mean an America out for blood- and a Britain lacking its cotton trade. It’s much more likely they take a “wait and see” attitude until the end of the war.

The ones pro-CS are enough to threaten war or stop the blockade so I wouldn't say the CS isn't convenient to them.

Because the US blockade was stopping it.

You don't threaten war over someone unless you have a good reason to, if they are disposed to threaten war over cotton then the US blockade isn't the only problem, if the US wins your cotton supply might not exist anymore.

Britain wouldn’t consider that risk worth it until the war is already decisively lost for the US- until the CS wins, they’re not worth risking economic sanction by the US.

No, there's no reason to intervene if the US is lost, the point of joining is to make sure the CS wins and while they have trade with the US, the US is more dependent on trade with Britain than Britain is on the US.

I wouldn’t say the opinions of the politicians were so resolute- there were plenty of British politicians who found the south’s chattel slavery disgusting, and the UK had a strong diplomatic mission from the US, too- the UK isn’t itching to support the CS.

They're threatening war, that's certainly a show of enthusiasm, if those who find slavery disgusting were in power they wouldn't force the US to stop its blockade.

That WAS the reason they were there, though- the UK wanted to stay neutral, and they had a right as a neutral party to receive diplomatic missions from who they wish- something the US was also doing and had interrupted due to the Trent affair- this isn’t a moment of US weakness, it’s a show of incompetence, a diplomatic blunder which allowed the UK to alleviate its cotton concerns.

You don't threaten war in a normal diplomatic meeting, you can only do that when you know the opposing country cannot afford to provoke you; if they're threatening war and the US complies it shows that the US doesn't want a war with GB which would support the already large interventionist party since IOTL they weren't enough to threaten war.

They won’t be suffering any more than Russia with their imports- most of what they need comes from the empire, including food- international trade is only used to remedy what’s missing, namely oil.

Yes they will, you will still not import that much food since consuming as much food as in peacetime would mean collapsing very soon, they'll still ration food and other resources, less than OTL in WW1 but still considerably and Germany doesn't have infinite troops.

For Austria it certainly was- and they didn’t exactly intend a world war by doing it. Everyone was counting on the other guy not being called in- and the situations of WW1 and this worlds WW2 are vastly different. This isn’t a network of alliances- it’s two hegemons facing off- the situation and its outcome is obvious to everyone, and there’d develop a significant amount of politicians and people who want to avoid that. Germany isn’t rushing into war headfirst because they’ve largely already achieved their place in the sun- they have a massive empire, economically dominate a good chunk of the world, and have vast political influence. Russia is the greatest threat, but they are hesitant to come to hostilities over it.

Austria did want war, they did everything that assured that a war would arise.
There are alliances, it's not that if there are two hegemons there won't be alliances, people will ally themselves with the most powerful one.
Germany is all but hesitant when it comes to fight Russia, if you don't do anything now then you will lose everything and they are even more scared than OTL after seeing how close the Russians are to surpassing Germany.

Their military tactics aren’t significantly changed- they worked in the 1800’s, there’s no reason for them to change.

To be fair, that's also a Soviet strategy.

The same commanders and the same theory is in place- there’s not much stimulating change here.

There won't be the same commanders, the aristocracy is much weaker than IOTL.

The USSR enacted very specific policies to rush industrialization. OTL Russia is NOT the same as the Soviet Union, they’re fundamentally different in every aspect- you can’t compare the two. They’re still much more similar to the Russian Empire of 1914 than the USSR of 1941.

You can say that the USSR is more prepared to produce war equipment however they were crushing the Germans while they didn't have all of their most important Western parts and had to fight all of Europe, here they won't get blitzkrieged, they have allies in the Balkans and they are more efficient in pretty much everything.

Germany by all means has deeper pockets than Russia, and their food is largely imported from their empire. Germany isn’t a pushover.

"deeper pockets"?
Germany cannot last that long on war time economy, they have shown their limits, they cannot import everything they need from elsewhere since they don't have enough money for that.

They needed very little in terms of actual presence there. They had a governor, some bureaucrats and a piecemeal colonial force- but they largely relied on native conscripts and collaborators to rule themselves. The empires knew how to run their colonies in the most profitable way possible.

But the colonies were still unprofitable for the most part.

I said before that dissastifaction would cause the end of the war in the Soviets favour- but the Soviets would be defeated longterm no matter what, the casualties and destruction they endure after yet another massive war is too large a strain on them to bear.

Not really, there won't be much happening on Soviet soil, most of the destruction will happen in WE, the Soviets can suffer much more casualties than the US and UK will ever do, they have seemingly infinite manpower while the US and UK will never be able to endure.

They were already halfway there- they were by no means in a peacetime economy, and were already producing more than the USSR was. The surviving soviet industries trucked along enough to defeat and out produce the Nazis- but they WERE heavily damaged, and that was the Nazis- the US ALREADY far out produced them.

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Doesn't exactly look to me like they're outproducing the USSR on land equipment and they produced half the aircrafts the US did, they completely destroyed the USSR on sea but that's not very surprising.

The Soviets quickened their surrender, but the WAllies don’t NEED to step foot on Manchuria for Japan to surrender- the war was already lost by that point.

Without a defeat on land the Japanese wouldn't've surrendered so fast, they still held on to a good chunk of China which was their main objective, I would say it quickened their surrender a lot.

I can just as easily reference the German success in 1945 against the Soviets- the Bulge DID end in an allied victory, and their initial struggles were largely due to overconfidence and poor reconnaissance. The Germans used their advantages where they had them, that doesn’t speak for the quality of whichever army they were fighting.

That was the Second Polish Army which was far from the best army on the Eastern Front, also that is one battle while the "Battle" of the Ardennes is an operation where the there were a few WAllies losses.

The allies control the mountains- once the Soviets are on the offensive, they’re the defenders.

From Germany to France it's all flat if you go trough the plains.

People have said this before but a Nazi Germany that doesn’t inevitably fight the USSR isn’t Nazi Germany- anticommunismes and a war against the USSR was an inherent part of their ideology- and even in the case of them somehow not fighting the Soviets, and the even more unlikely case that Stalin doesn’t decide to enact his own Barbarossa once his army reform is complete, Germany is going to fall regardless- the longer the Nazis brutally occupy Europe, the stronger the resistance movements get- combined with the blockade by Britain, they aren’t long for this world.

If Hitler doesn't invade the USSR then he isn't Hitler, however guys like Goering weren't keen on invading the USSR and would prefer not invading it.
Stalin wouldn't invade immediately, he would wait for as long as possible and probably shortly after Britain surrenders will decide to act, Britain can't blockade Germany forever if they're alone and the resistance movements got stronger because conditions of living deteriorated during the war in the west and in the East they had uprising because German control was collapsing.

That is true. It mostly depends on the international reaction, though.

I mean the ones who would care are the US and Russia since Japan isn't their best buddy to say the least, Germany would turn a blind eye and Italy cannot do much about what happens in the Pacific, I doubt the first two would escalate things but if Spain is significantly stronger than OTL maybe with Russian and US support they can put up a good fight.

I don’t think they EXPECT a prolonged war in this case, either.

Resources which would be used to attack the US are now used against the Russian navy and to transport soldiers, diverting them would be fatal.

As in, the more desperate each country gets, the sooner they start trying to block their access to British supplies- a pearl harbour is going to happen.

No, Russia has no way of arriving where the British are and Germany won't try to stop ships from transporting rubber, it's not worth it if Britain joins. And not all supplies come from Britain, it's simply that Britain could stop everything is transported via sea.

If they can sell Vancouver, it’s not impossible they sell a few African colonies.

Germany isn't in a position to buy Nigeria, they still have their own problems at home, the US could do so because they were never involved.

I wouldn’t call Tanzania unprofitable, nor unappealing- its main use to Germany, in fact, was the cultivation of various cash crops. There wasn’t much food grown there- but there’s certainly the opportunity for it.

AFAIK all German colonies were unprofitable by WW1.

The only thing they significantly lack is oil- they get both of the others in droves from their African colonies, especially the Congo.

Which you have to use to produce these, food isn't why you wanted the Congo.

If their main trade partner for food, Russia, is becoming their obvious enemy- yeah, they’re gonna want to find an alternative source of food. If they continue to rely on Russia for it, then a war won’t happen.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying they might not realize how much food they need.

The white settlers would OWN the farms- but the ones doing all the labour, the farmhands, are native. That was the case for most every OTL colonial agricultural venture- I don’t know where you got the idea that the colonies only ever provided their metals or minerals, colonial farms were more than common- not just food, but cash crops of all types (which is how the cotton plantations of the south began).

Colonial farming produced cash crops and co. they weren't used to produce food, that's not the idea of a colony and white farmers (not rich colonists) were the ones farming normally.

The OTL development of each country and the development of a united Gran Colombia is bound to differ.

Certainly but Colombia is also dominated by a plant-owner elite.

People aren’t going to “forget” the civil war- they’re going to want change. They’re going to be angry.

People don't like blaming themselves for their defeats, they find a scapegoat and blame everything on it.

They’ll still GET Dalmatia- it’s not something Russia offers, it’s something Italy receives from the start- no question. I posit that Russia offers Syria in exchange for Italian support/acquiescence on another issue, like the formation of Yugoslavia or Italian neutrality in the Balkans.

If Italy gets Syria it gets less of Dalmatia, you can't have everything you want. Russia doesn't have an issue in which Italy can do anything except for Dalmatia, they don't need Italian support to create Yugoslavia and Italian neutrality isn't worth much, they are saying they will but it doesn't mean they'll follow their word.

If a person specifically supports the confederate cause, they’re not going to join the arm where they’ll be sent to Mexico- they’ll join a volunteer group to go and fight for the CS.

People join the army hoping they don't get sent to the front, there won't be much people enthusiast to go fight for the CS.

Venezuela is largely similar to the US south- reliant on agriculture until sweet oil is found.

Colombia is also very similar to say Virginia, it's mainly agriculture.

 

[Krasno]

Fact is that if they do better it's significantly worse for the Ottomans, apart from the Crimean front the other ones IOTL were a draw up until the end of the war where the Russians took Kars (which was a bargaining chip for negotiations since they then occupied more land than the Franco-British force in Crimea), if the army is significantly better then the Ottomans would have a lot of problems and it would take the Austrians intervening to agree to a white peace. The end result will be the same (a draw) but in peace negotiations the treaty will likely be much more of a white peace than France and Britain would've hoped which could be an interesting chapter I have to say.

This also serves to more concretely sever Russia and Austria diplomatically- could have interesting effects on the brothers war.

Once you've decided to take the throne you can't be completely inactive, he certainly won't be the most present ruler but he wouldn't be completely sidelined and it's much easier for the coupers to influence the Tsar than to rule themselves since that could be a reason for a coup.

Obviously he’ll be present- it’s just that he was never much of a liberal OTL, so they’d try and distract him as much as they could.

Just as you have the NYC riots and the Ohio strikes, you have the Mormon rebellion and the Pacific insurrection, no reason to call it a separate conflict.

The difference is the sheer distance of the pacific rebellions- they’re so disconnected it’s like it’s an overseas territory.

Popular opinion is more neutral than that, sure slavery is bad but they aren't very concerned about what is going on, the world is much less connected than that.

Anyone who has any interest in politics is going to know- newspapers are already in full swing at this point, and each one has their own opinion on the civil war that then spreads to their readers. The overwhelming opinion at the time, outside of extreme conservative papers, was anti-confederate.

They would but unfortunately a slave state like the CS won't be that unstable, as long as the CS doesn't outright collapse blacks will have a hard time.

They will, but the amount of reliance the CS placed on slaves for their war effort significantly hampered them- they’re not overthrowing the system, but there were plenty of acts of sabotage OTL which hurt the CS bad.

I doubt it would collapse like this, I would expect that the Republicans cannot continue the war anymore due to a lot of pressure inside from the people who are tired of the war and outside from GB.

??? People losing morale directly translates to people being tired of the war.

He maybe but others might not think the same.

He makes the final decisions, though- and he has enough support early on in the war to try. As time goes on and people get more tired, Lincoln forcing it through will make the war all the more unpopular- causing internal unrest.

They did so in 1812 while the US wasn't distracted with most of its troops fighting around DC, the only thing the US can call are militiamen with no training while Canada has some professional troops and militias are OK when defending, especially if against other militias.

Because the US is while it's having difficulties fighting the CS? And I would like to remember you that a few years before the UK was participating in the Crimean War, so I wouldn't say they aren't ready for war.

The US has the largest army in the world at this point- if they stall the confederates and send some forces North, Canada is in trouble- and the Crimean war is PRECISELY why the UK isn’t ready for war, it was costly and unpopular and most of the army had been demobilized at that point.

The civil war meant that your troops are for the most part busy fighting with the CS, an invasion of Canada would be done with conscripted militiamen who have no training and will be uncontrollable during operations.

More likely the militia are sent to hold the line with the CS while a more experienced core is sent north for offensive operations.

Most of the UK would prefer not having to fight the US but they can if they have to and the US has a population which is more and more eager to end the war in your TL.

If the UK intervened early, like with the Trent affair, that may only serve to embolden people’s spirits- the comparison to the revolutionary war wouldn’t be hard.

AFAIK the first Modern War is the Crimean War and there have been a lot of conflicts during Victoria's reign.

None were on the scale of the ACW.

Much better than cotton being unsold and a lot of resources wasted on extracting it I would say, unlike OTL they're making money.

That’s certainly better for them, but by no means are they outdoing the US- and their economy remains much more unstable than the US’

But the Irish won't fight to get the city of Tri-Insula, they strike for some reason but they don't fight for independence.

It wouldn’t be hard to convince at least a few- many had confederate sympathies (and engaged in race-based attacks against black people) and even temporary secession means immunity from service.

The same ideas are in the heads of many citizens of the US, Japanese, Chinese and Russians have much more difficulties to get to California and the US is motivated by Manifest of Destiny.

They’ve all got presence in the Pacific- most would be travelling by boat, anyway. The Russians would largely establish themselves on Fort Ross beforehand, prior to being sold to the US, and a friendly relationship between Japan and the short lived California could mean there’s less of an anti-Japanese movement in the US which stymies Japanese (and probably by extension Chinese) immigration. There’s also lessened immigration given the loss of the south- they suffer from just not having as many people.

He just wanted the glory of another victory, he didn't really care about what happens after he wins.

He certainly wanted glory, but that’s not the ONLY reason- Mexico was useful to France as a way to influence the Americas, glory was part of it, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have real geopolitical ambitions for it.

Even IOTL the LatAm states have the right to make its own foreign policy but they will still be in the US sphere of influence since supporting a coup is often not too difficult if someone proves to be annoying.

But the US doesn’t have the same capacity for that ITTL- not just did they lose a ton of coastline, but they also have to contend with the influence of Britain and France (who can now influence the Americas through the CS).

The ones pro-CS are enough to threaten war or stop the blockade so I wouldn't say the CS isn't convenient to them.

Cotton is convenient, the blockade is directly stopping that.

You don't threaten war over someone unless you have a good reason to, if they are disposed to threaten war over cotton then the US blockade isn't the only problem, if the US wins your cotton supply might not exist anymore.

They’re not DIRECTLY threatening war- it’s moreso something like “we demand the end of the blockade to ensure the safety of our trade and to ensure another Trent does not occur.”

There isn’t an actual direct “we’re going to war with you if you don’t do this”, it’s the British taking advantage of Trent to say “this is what it’ll take for us to let this slide”. The implication is there, but it’s quite intentionally left vague.

No, there's no reason to intervene if the US is lost, the point of joining is to make sure the CS wins and while they have trade with the US, the US is more dependent on trade with Britain than Britain is on the US.

Britain still has a lot of trade with the US- even during 1812 the blockade against the US economically damaged Britain. They don’t want to sacrifice all of that for the CS- they want both, but when the US obviously starts to turn from Britain post war, that’s when CS and British interests align.

They're threatening war, that's certainly a show of enthusiasm, if those who find slavery disgusting were in power they wouldn't force the US to stop its blockade.

Even if you’re morally against the CS Trent was a direct offense against Britain- it would be Britain taking a grim stance on Trent, not for the CS.

You don't threaten war in a normal diplomatic meeting, you can only do that when you know the opposing country cannot afford to provoke you;

Threatening war is a VERY common diplomatic tactic- at least, alluding to it is. Especially from Britains position of power, saying “you don’t wanna mess with us” has worked for them long enough.

if they're threatening war and the US complies it shows that the US doesn't want a war with GB which would support the already large interventionist party since IOTL they weren't enough to threaten war.

I don’t think anybody is questioning whether the US wants a war with Britain- at this point, they don’t want a war with Mexico or even Hawaii, even if they can easily win. The US acquiescing to the British demands isn’t near enough to support an actual intervention- Britain is already gambling, and the US acceding is a good hand enough.

Yes they will, you will still not import that much food since consuming as much food as in peacetime would mean collapsing very soon, they'll still ration food and other resources, less than OTL in WW1 but still considerably and Germany doesn't have infinite troops.

Almost every country would introduce rationing- even Russia. That’s not a question.

Austria did want war, they did everything that assured that a war would arise.

I can assure you Austria did not want a war with Russia- maybe with Serbia, but they were counting on German support scaring Russia away. Everyone was counting on somebody else backing down.

There are alliances, it's not that if there are two hegemons there won't be alliances, people will ally themselves with the most powerful one.

It’s a far different situation than the Great powers of before, though; if there are only two, it’s clear that tensions will arise- and people will want to prevent that, there’s just not as much hope for a deescelation.

Germany is all but hesitant when it comes to fight Russia, if you don't do anything now then you will lose everything

They are EXTREMELY hesitant to fight Russia- you’re risking far more by going to war then by trying to win diplomatically.

and they are even more scared than OTL after seeing how close the Russians are to surpassing Germany.

Russia is not going to overwhelmingly surpass Germany until at least the 50s-60s, even Russia’s early start comes from a significantly lower place than Germany- they start on a much lower level than Germany does, even in the 1820’s, and they have to do it on a much larger scale.

To be fair, that's also a Soviet strategy.

The Soviets actually had a very advanced military strategy- Deep battle, Maskirovka, and more gave the Soviets a strategic edge over the Nazis- their bottleneck was the lack of experienced commanders at the start of the war. The Russian Empire didn’t have nearly the same amount of strategic theory built up- though deep battle may still be developed, the conditions in which it arose are largely missing- Brusilov was really one of the few competent generals of the Empire, though I don’t know how effective his strategy will be in more mobile warfare.

There won't be the same commanders, the aristocracy is much weaker than IOTL.

The military high command had long been relegated to the aristocracy- its unlikely peasant generals arise to the same status without a revolution.

You can say that the USSR is more prepared to produce war equipment however they were crushing the Germans while they didn't have all of their most important Western parts and had to fight all of Europe, here they won't get blitzkrieged, they have allies in the Balkans and they are more efficient in pretty much everything.

I wouldn’t say so. They don’t have nearly the same amount of coordination the Soviets had, for one, and the extreme centralization which was in place for long before the war is in large part what allowed them to be as efficient as they were in wartime. The Russian empire here is still a mess of political contradictions and the economy takes a vastly different shape. You can’t compare the USSR to this Russia, because everything about them is fundamentally different.

"deeper pockets"?
Germany cannot last that long on war time economy, they have shown their limits, they cannot import everything they need from elsewhere since they don't have enough money for that.

Don’t have enough money? They’d be one of the richest countries in the world- their

But the colonies were still unprofitable for the most part.

Not at all. You can argue that for a few select colonies, but on the whole the empire was vastly profitable for Britain and in large part is what kept them afloat.

Not really, there won't be much happening on Soviet soil, most of the destruction will happen in WE, the Soviets can suffer much more casualties than the US and UK will ever do, they have seemingly infinite manpower while the US and UK will never be able to endure.

The Soviets had already mobilized essentially anyone they can- they can’t afford to take casualties forever, and the more they take the more devastated they are postwar.

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This is only leading me to an error page- what is it?

Doesn't exactly look to me like they're outproducing the USSR on land equipment and they produced half the aircrafts the US did, they completely destroyed the USSR on sea but that's not very surprising.

AFAIK they only really significantly out produced the US in tanks- and you must consider the terrain. Soviet tanks were greatly effective, ye, but that was on the great European plain- they weren’t built for combat in Western Europe.

Without a defeat on land the Japanese wouldn't've surrendered so fast, they still held on to a good chunk of China which was their main objective, I would say it quickened their surrender a lot.

Japan was already ready to surrender before the bombs fell and the USSR invaded- the war is already hopelessly lost no matter what.

That was the Second Polish Army which was far from the best army on the Eastern Front, also that is one battle while the "Battle" of the Ardennes is an operation where the there were a few WAllies losses.

The USSR suffered defeats while advancing on Germany- they couldn’t hold a 100% victory ratio, and neither could the WAllies. They both largely beat the Germans asses.

From Germany to France it's all flat if you go trough the plains.

The Maginot line is largely still operational, and I doubt the Soviets will be able to repeat the offensive through the Ardennes- the non alpine chunks are also a different terrain to the European plain, though they may be similarly flat. The Soviets would have to advance through the Netherlands, which are a small choke point and easy to bomb from Britain.

If Hitler doesn't invade the USSR then he isn't Hitler, however guys like Goering weren't keen on invading the USSR and would prefer not invading it.

Goering would collapse Germany all his own- he was already pretty incompetent at leading the luftwaffe, as head of state he’d blunder all around.

Stalin wouldn't invade immediately, he would wait for as long as possible and probably shortly after Britain surrenders will decide to act

Why would he act as soon as Germany is able to focus all their attention east? Stalin’s method in containing the Nazis had largely been to try and coordinate with the WAllies, which he tried to do prewar- only to be turned down. That wouldn’t happen during the war, though.

Britain can't blockade Germany forever if they're alone and the resistance movements got stronger because conditions of living deteriorated during the war in the west and in the East they had uprising because German control was collapsing.

Conditions were always pretty low under the Nazis- revolts increased due to the increasing discontent under German rule, and when Germany is distracted they’ll reach a boiling point.

I mean the ones who would care are the US and Russia since Japan isn't their best buddy to say the least,

Agree, though the US wouldn’t be that invested.

Germany would turn a blind eye and Italy cannot do much about what happens in the Pacific,

I imagine Italy at least gives diplomatic support to Spain, though- they have no interest in allying Japan like Germany does.

I doubt the first two would escalate things but if Spain is significantly stronger than OTL maybe with Russian and US support they can put up a good fight.

Apparently the Carlist pretender of the time had good relations with the Tsar and the Russian monarchy, so they may get support from there.

Resources which would be used to attack the US are now used against the Russian navy and to transport soldiers, diverting them would be fatal.

I mean, to be honest, the Russian pacific fleet won’t take THAT many resources.

No, Russia has no way of arriving where the British are

Where is British oil oh so conveniently located?

and Germany won't try to stop ships from transporting rubber, it's not worth it if Britain joins.

If they get really desperate, and if they’re crazy enough to attack Russia willy-nilly like you say, it’s not beyond them.

And not all supplies come from Britain, it's simply that Britain could stop everything is transported via sea.

A significant chunk of both their reserves come from Britain, though.

Germany isn't in a position to buy Nigeria, they still have their own problems at home, the US could do so because they were never involved.

What interest would the US have in Nigeria? And Germany certainly could buy Nigeria a bit after the war- they’d likely have an as strong if not stronger economy than the US and definitely more than Britain, and they didn’t really have much fighting on their soil ITTL either.

AFAIK all German colonies were unprofitable by WW1.

Some of the larger ones were ailing, but Colonies like Togoland and Samoa were still relatively lucrative.

Which you have to use to produce these, food isn't why you wanted the Congo.

They’d be importing oil at a steady pace during peacetime- that won’t bankrupt them, and they’re making more than enough to pay for it.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying they might not realize how much food they need.

They obviously can’t make 100% accurate predictions, but no one can- either way, they’ll be producing food.

Colonial farming produced cash crops and co. they weren't used to produce food, that's not the idea of a colony and white farmers (not rich colonists) were the ones farming normally.

What do you think cash crops are? There are plenty of cash crops that are also food- in fact, many are cash crops BECAUSE they’re food. And no, white farmers did not typically man the farms- that was the case only in America, where settler colonialism had kicked the natives out and there was mass migrations. In Africa, where there was a limited white population, white people owned farms and hired local natives to work on them.

Certainly but Colombia is also dominated by a plant-owner elite.

OTL, but given they’re the centre of a much stronger nation ITTL, they could start becoming more of an industrial heartland.

People don't like blaming themselves for their defeats, they find a scapegoat and blame everything on it.

“The system” is quite often that scapegoat.

If Italy gets Syria it gets less of Dalmatia,

No? That’s like saying Russia will have less of Galicia for receiving Sagallo- it’s one of the core demands they had prewar, it’s a non negotiable concession that would cause diplomatic turmoil.

You can't have everything you want.

That’s not how this works. If everything you want is rather modest, then yes, you can get everything you want, if it’s all the Roman Empire, then no- most of the territories weren’t really sought by any of the three powers prewar, and they’ll be bartered for a traded off.

Russia doesn't have an issue in which Italy can do anything except for Dalmatia,

Italian support for certain political concessions in Hungary, support for Russian resource rights in X African colony… you’re not just discussing land here, there’s more to be given out or taken.

they don't need Italian support to create Yugoslavia and Italian neutrality isn't worth much,

Italian support for Yugoslavia certainly helps the legitimacy of the new state, and it also opens up Italy for peaceful discussion regarding the Balkans.

they are saying they will but it doesn't mean they'll follow their word.

By this logic any treaty signed ever is pointless because you can’t trust the other to honour their agreement. Breaking a clause decided in a peace treaty is a bad look diplomatically- they don’t have the assurance that they’ll get away with it and it would cause tensions where you don’t want them.

People join the army hoping they don't get sent to the front, there won't be much people enthusiast to go fight for the CS.

That is a biiiig overgeneralization- especially in this time period, war is romanticized and seen as glorious and noble, the fear of the front is only really a modern phenomenon with the trauma of the world wars.

Colombia is also very similar to say Virginia, it's mainly agriculture.

If one part of your nation is already dedicated to agricultural needs, that opens you up to diversifying your economy.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

This also serves to more concretely sever Russia and Austria diplomatically- could have interesting effects on the brothers war.

Russia is going to send a Cossack mission to help Germany. (referencing the OP)

Obviously he’ll be present- it’s just that he was never much of a liberal OTL, so they’d try and distract him as much as they could.

That won't be the case ITTL if he allies himself with the Decembrists to prevent a coup from the nobility, there are plenty other ways to prevent a coup by the nobility than going to some random group of agitators who are, frankly, unimportant.

Anyone who has any interest in politics is going to know- newspapers are already in full swing at this point, and each one has their own opinion on the civil war that then spreads to their readers. The overwhelming opinion at the time, outside of extreme conservative papers, was anti-confederate.

Doesn't really prevent the UK to threaten war on the US.

They will, but the amount of reliance the CS placed on slaves for their war effort significantly hampered them- they’re not overthrowing the system, but there were plenty of acts of sabotage OTL which hurt the CS bad.

How would you call the riots in Ohio and NYC?

??? People losing morale directly translates to people being tired of the war.

The post I responded to was saying something about the US collapsing, IMO the Republicans will give up before that.

The US has the largest army in the world at this point- if they stall the confederates and send some forces North, Canada is in trouble- and the Crimean war is PRECISELY why the UK isn’t ready for war, it was costly and unpopular and most of the army had been demobilized at that point.

That is very debatable, they might've conscripted more people since they're in war time but having the largest professional army is impossible. The US is busy fighting itself, troops sent to Canada will be terrible, if Canada is invaded then there will be no one who will want to stop fighting like in the Crimean one; the reason this one was unpopular was because soldiers were sent to die on the other side of Europe for objectively no gains, here they're defending their colony against the US who will be blamed for starting the war.

More likely the militia are sent to hold the line with the CS while a more experienced core is sent north for offensive operations.

You want to move hundreds of thousands of soldiers from an active front to fight in Canada? Offensive operations are also happening around DC, operations which won't be reversed to go fight in Canada.

If the UK intervened early, like with the Trent affair, that may only serve to embolden people’s spirits- the comparison to the revolutionary war wouldn’t be hard.

After a few setbacks that goes away.

That’s certainly better for them, but by no means are they outdoing the US- and their economy remains much more unstable than the US’

The biggest issues of the CS were food and weapons, both of which are solved ITTL, they can continue for a long time, longer than the US population can support and if there already are problems because of anti-war sentiment you're trying to shorten the war as much as possible.

It wouldn’t be hard to convince at least a few- many had confederate sympathies (and engaged in race-based attacks against black people) and even temporary secession means immunity from service.

Secession would mean being mobilized immediately to defend Tri-Insula, a much easier way is striking until the government does something t calm them down.

He certainly wanted glory, but that’s not the ONLY reason- Mexico was useful to France as a way to influence the Americas, glory was part of it, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have real geopolitical ambitions for it.

Because after invading Mexico you will? Mexico isn't very rich for the cost of having to constantly send soldiers to maintain the Empire and there is not much to influence further than that, CA doesn't have something very important.

But the US doesn’t have the same capacity for that ITTL- not just did they lose a ton of coastline, but they also have to contend with the influence of Britain and France (who can now influence the Americas through the CS).

Not the same but still very similar, they may not have ports in the Caribbean but economy and unstable states play in their hands.

Cotton is convenient, the blockade is directly stopping that.

If the CS loses you might not see its cotton ever again.

They’re not DIRECTLY threatening war- it’s moreso something like “we demand the end of the blockade to ensure the safety of our trade and to ensure another Trent does not occur.”

There isn’t an actual direct “we’re going to war with you if you don’t do this”, it’s the British taking advantage of Trent to say “this is what it’ll take for us to let this slide”. The implication is there, but it’s quite intentionally left vague.

C'est un peu tiré par les cheveux, the blockade isn't why Trent happened, the only thing they can demand is release of the envoys and apologies which they got.

Britain still has a lot of trade with the US- even during 1812 the blockade against the US economically damaged Britain. They don’t want to sacrifice all of that for the CS- they want both, but when the US obviously starts to turn from Britain post war, that’s when CS and British interests align.

In that case you don't demand an end to the blockade, that's violating the rights of the US to do what it wants with its territory.

Even if you’re morally against the CS Trent was a direct offense against Britain- it would be Britain taking a grim stance on Trent, not for the CS.

The US released the envoys and apologized, that's enough for anyone that isn't pro-CS.

Threatening war is a VERY common diplomatic tactic- at least, alluding to it is. Especially from Britains position of power, saying “you don’t wanna mess with us” has worked for them long enough.

Because Britain is bullying some random country most of the time, they don't threaten war so easily unless they really mean it, and IOTL they didn't.

I don’t think anybody is questioning whether the US wants a war with Britain- at this point, they don’t want a war with Mexico or even Hawaii, even if they can easily win. The US acquiescing to the British demands isn’t near enough to support an actual intervention- Britain is already gambling, and the US acceding is a good hand enough.

If the government is able to threaten war then it is much more pro-CS than OTL and these interventionist will consider this a show of weakness.

Almost every country would introduce rationing- even Russia. That’s not a question.

Not to the same extent.

I can assure you Austria did not want a war with Russia- maybe with Serbia, but they were counting on German support scaring Russia away. Everyone was counting on somebody else backing down.

They had no problem going to war with Russia.

It’s a far different situation than the Great powers of before, though; if there are only two, it’s clear that tensions will arise- and people will want to prevent that, there’s just not as much hope for a deescelation.

There are also other GP, it's just that two of them are more dominant than the others while the third superpower is in isolation.

They are EXTREMELY hesitant to fight Russia- you’re risking far more by going to war then by trying to win diplomatically.

There's no win diplomatically, the longer you let Russia industrialize the less are your chances to win that's a fact and German leadership had the peculiarity to exagerate a lot Russia's capabilities, they thought OTL Russia would surpass them by 1919 so anything to OTL command will go to war with Russia ASAP.

Russia is not going to overwhelmingly surpass Germany until at least the 50s-60s, even Russia’s early start comes from a significantly lower place than Germany- they start on a much lower level than Germany does, even in the 1820’s, and they have to do it on a much larger scale.

OTL Russia was enough to make Germany panic, TTL's Russia is significantly stronger and the Germans see that if they do nothing Russia will be unstoppable.

The Soviets actually had a very advanced military strategy- Deep battle, Maskirovka, and more gave the Soviets a strategic edge over the Nazis- their bottleneck was the lack of experienced commanders at the start of the war. The Russian Empire didn’t have nearly the same amount of strategic theory built up- though deep battle may still be developed, the conditions in which it arose are largely missing- Brusilov was really one of the few competent generals of the Empire, though I don’t know how effective his strategy will be in more mobile warfare.

Maskirovka had existed during the Russian Empire and all military strategies which were developed were developed by Tsarist generals since they were the ones filling the ranks at the beginning.

Don’t have enough money? They’d be one of the richest countries in the world- their

During a total war the civilian economy doesn't work anymore, the Germans cannot continue forever with their reserves, at some point they'll run out of money.

Not at all. You can argue that for a few select colonies, but on the whole the empire was vastly profitable for Britain and in large part is what kept them afloat.

IMO the only colony which made the British what they were was India, combined with the Dominions that was 99% of the power of the empire, the rest was a waste of money.

The Soviets had already mobilized essentially anyone they can- they can’t afford to take casualties forever, and the more they take the more devastated they are postwar.

The Soviets have already 2 times the troops the WAllies have and the guys which turned 18 from 1945 to 49 weren't mobilized, meanwhile if the US or UK was to mobilize a small part of the Soviet soldiers they would suffer terrible backlash.

This is only leading me to an error page- what is it?

Military production during World War II - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

AFAIK they only really significantly out produced the US in tanks- and you must consider the terrain. Soviet tanks were greatly effective, ye, but that was on the great European plain- they weren’t built for combat in Western Europe.

Northern Germany, the Low Lands and Northern France are all plains if not depressions.

Japan was already ready to surrender before the bombs fell and the USSR invaded- the war is already hopelessly lost no matter what.

You're underestimating how idiotic the Japanese leadership was, Hirohito himself had to intervene to force the generals to surrender IOTL.

Goering would collapse Germany all his own- he was already pretty incompetent at leading the luftwaffe, as head of state he’d blunder all around.

Goering wasn't that incompetent in my knowledge, the Luftwaffe couldn't win, you can't blame its failures on him just as you can't blame Rommel for his loss in North Africa.

Why would he act as soon as Germany is able to focus all their attention east? Stalin’s method in containing the Nazis had largely been to try and coordinate with the WAllies, which he tried to do prewar- only to be turned down. That wouldn’t happen during the war, though.

He wants to rebuild as much as possible so he's buying time; if Germany doesn't go after the Soviets they're trying to capitulate Britain and Stalin would wait until he considers his army ready.

Conditions were always pretty low under the Nazis- revolts increased due to the increasing discontent under German rule, and when Germany is distracted they’ll reach a boiling point.

The fact that you don't have to distract resources for Barbarossa helps the Germans significantly. Conditions deteriorated a lot due to Barbarossa.

I imagine Italy at least gives diplomatic support to Spain, though- they have no interest in allying Japan like Germany does.

But that doesn't really help Spain in its fight against Japan.

I mean, to be honest, the Russian pacific fleet won’t take THAT many resources.

It would, IOTL Russo-Japanese war a lot of ships are needed since you need to completely neutralize the Russian navy (which is much better ITTL) to land troops and supply them. Japan can't send its ships on the other side of the Pacific while it's doing that.

Where is British oil oh so conveniently located?

That's not a Pearl Harbour and Germany has other oil sources, it's not worth it if you're bringing Britain in and the Russians aren't idiots.

If they get really desperate, and if they’re crazy enough to attack Russia willy-nilly like you say, it’s not beyond them.

IT IS BEYOND THEM, they're attacking Russia because if they don't they'll get surpassed due to population, they're not crazy enough to make Britain join in, it won't do anything positive and it will assure you to be defeated.

A significant chunk of both their reserves come from Britain, though.

Russia not that much, they may buy some things but they can continue their war effort if Britain decides to not sell anything, Germany is another story, it depends on how willing the British are to sell to the Germans and how many other sources of raw materials and food Germany finds.

What interest would the US have in Nigeria? And Germany certainly could buy Nigeria a bit after the war- they’d likely have an as strong if not stronger economy than the US and definitely more than Britain, and they didn’t really have much fighting on their soil ITTL either.

I was saying the US could buy Vancouver because they didn't fight a bloody war for years like Germany did. Germany wouldn't really do that, almost all resources will be needed to return to peace time economy, I would like to remember you that Britain had significant difficulties IOTL while winning the war and not having much fighting on its soil.

Some of the larger ones were ailing, but Colonies like Togoland and Samoa were still relatively lucrative.

Togoland and Samoa are a ridiculously small part of the German Empire.

They’d be importing oil at a steady pace during peacetime- that won’t bankrupt them, and they’re making more than enough to pay for it.

During peacetime oil is used to produce things that are profitable therefore you are making money, during wartime oil is used in combat and your civilian factories aren't producing much - you are losing money.

What do you think cash crops are? There are plenty of cash crops that are also food- in fact, many are cash crops BECAUSE they’re food.

Cocoa, coffee, sugar etc. are food but they aren't going to feed your soldiers by themselves.

And no, white farmers did not typically man the farms- that was the case only in America, where settler colonialism had kicked the natives out and there was mass migrations. In Africa, where there was a limited white population, white people owned farms and hired local natives to work on them.

How do you explain what happened in Zimbabwe in 2000-1?

OTL, but given they’re the centre of a much stronger nation ITTL, they could start becoming more of an industrial heartland.

It's a slightly larger Colombia, but the territories it has compared to OTL Colombia don't favour industrialization, if anything they slow it down since you have even more opposition to reforms.

“The system” is quite often that scapegoat.

No, they blame someone else, Germany blamed things on Jews (or on not being a Marxist state), the CS took revenge on blacks etc. people don't like blaming themselves when things go wrong.

No? That’s like saying Russia will have less of Galicia for receiving Sagallo- it’s one of the core demands they had prewar, it’s a non negotiable concession that would cause diplomatic turmoil.

That's the only issue Russia cares about, Libya, Tunisia, the Horn of Africa, etc. aren't a problem to Russia but Dalmatia is something they care about since it weakens Serbia.

Italian support for Yugoslavia certainly helps the legitimacy of the new state, and it also opens up Italy for peaceful discussion regarding the Balkans.

Nothing changes if Italy says that it won't annoy Yugoslavia, it is an internationally recognized nation and it doesn't have problems in annexing the new territories, Italian support isn't needed for its creation. And Italy not having any further designs in the Balkans isn't really plausible.

By this logic any treaty signed ever is pointless because you can’t trust the other to honour their agreement. Breaking a clause decided in a peace treaty is a bad look diplomatically- they don’t have the assurance that they’ll get away with it and it would cause tensions where you don’t want them.

That's a separate treaty, all they can get at the post-war negotiations is Italian promises not to expand in the Balkans.

That is a biiiig overgeneralization- especially in this time period, war is romanticized and seen as glorious and noble, the fear of the front is only really a modern phenomenon with the trauma of the world wars.

Most people still prefered not to fight if possible.

If one part of your nation is already dedicated to agricultural needs, that opens you up to diversifying your economy.

That's not how they do it, the land-owning elite won't allow any reforms and since now you have the elite from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador combined it becomes significantly more difficult to implement reforms.

 

[Krasno]

Russia is going to send a Cossack mission to help Germany. (referencing the OP)

That’d be a very interesting situation lol

That won't be the case ITTL if he allies himself with the Decembrists to prevent a coup from the nobility, there are plenty other ways to prevent a coup by the nobility than going to some random group of agitators who are, frankly, unimportant.

Michael here is convinced by General Benckendorff that there’s a noble coup brewing- the Decembrists are only presented to him as “a group of loyal soldiers ready to serve Russia”. They by all means manipulated him into acting.

Doesn't really prevent the UK to threaten war on the US.

It does- outside of events like Trent, which can mobilize the populace, the UK needs to be careful about how it deals with the US- it’s still at least needs to keep up the facade of neutrality.

How would you call the riots in Ohio and NYC?

Probably the northern revolts or the like.

The post I responded to was saying something about the US collapsing, IMO the Republicans will give up before that.

The republicans give up when it starts LOOKING alike the US is unravelling- revolts on the frontier, riots in the north, and losses on the front- all of these also serve to demoralize the people.

That is very debatable, they might've conscripted more people since they're in war time but having the largest professional army is impossible. The US is busy fighting itself, troops sent to Canada will be terrible, if Canada is invaded then there will be no one who will want to stop fighting like in the Crimean one; the reason this one was unpopular was because soldiers were sent to die on the other side of Europe for objectively no gains, here they're defending their colony against the US who will be blamed for starting the war.

This plan of action makes it look like the US doesn’t see the UK as a threat- capturing Halifax at the least would be a top priority in case of war with Britain.

You want to move hundreds of thousands of soldiers from an active front to fight in Canada? Offensive operations are also happening around DC, operations which won't be reversed to go fight in Canada.

DC isn’t the only front- it’s likely offensives on the missisippi are halted to reinforce the north.

After a few setbacks that goes away.

Once the UK starts advancing they’re dealing with several partisans behind their lines disrupting every operation, and the civil war becomes a war of survival for the US- it escalates the war in peoples minds and the UK may not want such a long term headache.

The biggest issues of the CS were food and weapons, both of which are solved ITTL, they can continue for a long time, longer than the US population can support and if there already are problems because of anti-war sentiment you're trying to shorten the war as much as possible.

Weapons aren’t as likely- I don’t think there’d be any official UK supply of arms making their way to the CS- the small-scale private contributions may still occur, but that’s still small.

Secession would mean being mobilized immediately to defend Tri-Insula, a much easier way is striking until the government does something t calm them down.

The act of secession would be far less concrete than that- its more a group of politicians declaring New York independent as a fuck you to the US, there isn’t a city-wide mobilization effort, the only real forces they have are the people who actively support them.

Because after invading Mexico you will? Mexico isn't very rich for the cost of having to constantly send soldiers to maintain the Empire and there is not much to influence further than that, CA doesn't have something very important.

Hey, I never said his plan was well thought out- but that doesn’t mean he did it purely for glory. Mexico was intended as a base for French interests in the Americas- if France had an interest in an economic concession from Central America, say, they have a border from which to attack and ports in which they likely have a significant navy stationed- which makes any American nation significantly more likely to acquiesce to a French demand. I never said it’d work, but the interest for influencing the Americas is there.

Not the same but still very similar, they may not have ports in the Caribbean but economy and unstable states play in their hands.

Except now they can play into European and Confederate hands, too.

If the CS loses you might not see its cotton ever again.

That’s only if you’re openly and consistently aggressive to the US. Trent is pushing it, but it can definitely be argued by the British that they only wished to ensure the security of their trade. If they openly supply the CS, there’s no such narrative.

C'est un peu tiré par les cheveux, the blockade isn't why Trent happened, the only thing they can demand is release of the envoys and apologies which they got.

The British ship wouldn’t have been stopped had there been no blockade.

In that case you don't demand an end to the blockade, that's violating the rights of the US to do what it wants with its territory.

In the British view the US was infringing on the rights of a neutral nation- the US navy had intercepted a British ship meant for diplomatic nations, it would likely be spun as a method of safeguarding their ships.

The US released the envoys and apologized, that's enough for anyone that isn't pro-CS.

That’s exactly what changes here though- a worse US response (possibly due to delayed orders from Lincoln) would mean that the issue goes far worse, and is what brings Britain to demand terms.

Because Britain is bullying some random country most of the time, they don't threaten war so easily unless they really mean it, and IOTL they didn't.

They never state things clearly- it’s always the implication of war, the idea that “we have a deal for you- you better not mess with us.”

If the government is able to threaten war then it is much more pro-CS than OTL and these interventionist will consider this a show of weakness.

It’s not outright threatening war- there’s just an implication of heightened tensions should the US refuse.

Not to the same extent.

Russia has a larger army- it thus has much higher food needs. Russian agriculture wasn’t always productive, and there were several famines under the Russian Empire despite their position as granary of Europe.

They had no problem going to war with Russia.

Austria wouldn’t dream of doing something so risky without a German guarantee of support- they felt secure because they thought that Russia would back down with a German threat.

There are also other GP, it's just that two of them are more dominant than the others while the third superpower is in isolation.

They are unquestionably the big two- the conclusions aren’t hard to come to for most people.

There's no win diplomatically, the longer you let Russia industrialize the less are your chances to win that's a fact and German leadership had the peculiarity to exagerate a lot Russia's capabilities, they thought OTL Russia would surpass them by 1919 so anything to OTL command will go to war with Russia ASAP.

OTL Russia was enough to make Germany panic, TTL's Russia is significantly stronger and the Germans see that if they do nothing Russia will be unstoppable.

It’s the same situation for Britain- they were just as if not more scared of Russia’s growth during the great game, but circumstance forced them to be allies and the outlook changed. Germany and its high command are simply not as scared of Russia if they are on friendly terms- the increased cooperation also gives them more insight on the actual functioning of Russia’s economy- which would not be showing signs of overwhelming Germany anytime soon.

Maskirovka had existed during the Russian Empire and all military strategies which were developed were developed by Tsarist generals since they were the ones filling the ranks at the beginning.

They had a school for deception formed only in 1904- there wasn’t any actual operational use of it by the Empire as far as I know.

During a total war the civilian economy doesn't work anymore, the Germans cannot continue forever with their reserves, at some point they'll run out of money.

That doesn’t mean they’ll collapse so soon though- the war doesn’t necessarily start out taxing, and much of Germanys trade and production remains the same. Russia is certainly hit much worse economically when the war starts, given two avenues of worldwide trade are suddenly shut down.

IMO the only colony which made the British what they were was India, combined with the Dominions that was 99% of the power of the empire, the rest was a waste of money.

Aside from the various islands that held value in the ports they provide for Britain- that leaves Malaya and Africa.

Malaya held great value as a way for Britain to control the trade routes of SE Asia- the Malacca strait especially, and much of the commerce coming out of SE Asia would have to go through Britain.

Africa was a mixed bag, but generally the resources of the continent and the strategic placement of various countries allowed Britain to better influence its other colonies and further develop the motherland.

The Soviets have already 2 times the troops the WAllies have and the guys which turned 18 from 1945 to 49 weren't mobilized, meanwhile if the US or UK was to mobilize a small part of the Soviet soldiers they would suffer terrible backlash.

Northern Germany, the Low Lands and Northern France are all plains if not depressions.

They hit a wall at the Maginot, for one, and in the North they’ll be met with various choke points around the border with France once they overrun the lowland- the land between the defence line and the sea is small enough that it’s a choke point the WAllies can effectively defend- they have a lot more developed airfields in the area (namely Britain) than the Soviets do, so the Soviets will continue to take high casualties while they advance.

You're underestimating how idiotic the Japanese leadership was, Hirohito himself had to intervene to force the generals to surrender IOTL.

He was already ready to unconditionally surrender before the bombs dropped or the Soviets invaded- while it did hasten surrender, it was already all but assured.

Goering wasn't that incompetent in my knowledge, the Luftwaffe couldn't win, you can't blame its failures on him just as you can't blame Rommel for his loss in North Africa.

The guy was a drug addict- he made a lot of strategic mistakes during the war, even if the luftwaffe was doomed from the start- he hastened its demise.

He wants to rebuild as much as possible so he's buying time; if Germany doesn't go after the Soviets they're trying to capitulate Britain and Stalin would wait until he considers his army ready.

Germany CANT capitulate Britain, though; there’s no scenario in which they do. It’s not like the materials for Barbarossa are useful against Britain, who’s already won the war in the air and at sea.

The fact that you don't have to distract resources for Barbarossa helps the Germans significantly. Conditions deteriorated a lot due to Barbarossa.

Germany is still getting starved of resources the longer the war goes on- they’ll starve even without Barbarossa.

But that doesn't really help Spain in its fight against Japan.

I was thinking more in the context of European politics it brings Italy closer to Spain.

It would, IOTL Russo-Japanese war a lot of ships are needed since you need to completely neutralize the Russian navy (which is much better ITTL) to land troops and supply them. Japan can't send its ships on the other side of the Pacific while it's doing that.

Even if the Russian navy is superior, that is largely seen in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, Russia’s priorities- the pacific fleet was often an afterthought, and Japan greatly benefits from that.

That's not a Pearl Harbour and Germany has other oil sources, it's not worth it if you're bringing Britain in and the Russians aren't idiots.

Russia doesn’t always have the most sound foreign policy, either- they made plenty of idiotic mistakes OTL, and without characters like Litvinov a qualified foreign minister isn’t guaranteed.

IT IS BEYOND THEM, they're attacking Russia because if they don't they'll get surpassed due to population,

This is comparable to Britain and the US- Germany still has too many advantages for now for this to be a defining factor.

they're not crazy enough to make Britain join in, it won't do anything positive and it will assure you to be defeated.

This is no less crazy than openly attacking Russia only 10-20 years after the last war which people still remember and hate with all their might- Germany clearly isn’t showing the most sound foreign policy decisions, and this attack likely only comes late in the war once Germany is desperate.

Russia not that much, they may buy some things but they can continue their war effort if Britain decides to not sell anything, Germany is another story, it depends on how willing the British are to sell to the Germans and how many other sources of raw materials and food Germany finds.

Rubber is a crucial resource for warfare, and something Russia does not have a domestic supply of. If Britain and Japan both Block the Russian supply, then Russia will be starving for Rubber soon. OTL they managed to substitute it for a lower quality plant grown in Central Asia, but given Central Asia is likely far less developed than it was OTL under the USSR, its not guaranteed the same thing occurs.

I was saying the US could buy Vancouver because they didn't fight a bloody war for years like Germany did. Germany wouldn't really do that, almost all resources will be needed to return to peace time economy, I would like to remember you that Britain had significant difficulties IOTL while winning the war and not having much fighting on its soil.

Germany is rebuilding from a strong place- it had just gained a vast new empire, and would be receiving large reparations from the defeated powers- they’d be getting up on their feet much sooner, especially without the effects of a Great Depression like what happened to the Entente powers OTL.

Togoland and Samoa are a ridiculously small part of the German Empire.

The raw materials of the other parts of their empire required a large initial investment- in the long term they would’ve been profitable, Germany just never got to see that.

During peacetime oil is used to produce things that are profitable therefore you are making money, during wartime oil is used in combat and your civilian factories aren't producing much - you are losing money.

This does not immediately mean that all oil is directed to the war- neither would be in total war, especially not at the beginning.

Cocoa, coffee, sugar etc. are food but they aren't going to feed your soldiers by themselves.

you can sell them to buy food, though- and the point is that they have fertile land.

How do you explain what happened in Zimbabwe in 2000-1?

I don’t exactly have a major in Zimbabwean history, but wasn’t that just mismanaged land reform?

It's a slightly larger Colombia, but the territories it has compared to OTL Colombia don't favour industrialization, if anything they slow it down since you have even more opposition to reforms.

Why’s that?

No, they blame someone else, Germany blamed things on Jews (or on not being a Marxist state), the CS took revenge on blacks etc. people don't like blaming themselves when things go wrong.

There’s a reason popularity for the Kaiser dropped following WW1- he was seen as a relic of an era where Germany had lost, he represented the system that lost the war for them.

That's the only issue Russia cares about, Libya, Tunisia, the Horn of Africa, etc. aren't a problem to Russia but Dalmatia is something they care about since it weakens Serbia.

Good relations with Italy count a lot more than maximalizing relations with Serbia. There’s no world where Russia sees Italy giving up Dalmatia as realistic, so their goals would be elsewhere.

Nothing changes if Italy says that it won't annoy Yugoslavia, it is an internationally recognized nation and it doesn't have problems in annexing the new territories,

Italy is a major power in the area- its support would make the new state all the more secure.

Italian support isn't needed for its creation. And Italy not having any further designs in the Balkans isn't really plausible.

Why’s that? Italy only really developed a taste for Balkan influence after Mussolinis rise AFAIK.

That's a separate treaty, all they can get at the post-war negotiations is Italian promises not to expand in the Balkans.

That’s largely all they want.

Most people still prefered not to fight if possible.

Not always. You’d be surprised how quickly a lot of people threw their lives away- many of the volunteers to Greece in the Greco-Ottoman war were educated, often well off individuals, as it is they who idealized Greece as the founder of western civilization- the average peasant didn’t care.

That's not how they do it, the land-owning elite won't allow any reforms and since now you have the elite from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador combined it becomes significantly more difficult to implement reforms.

They all have different interests, though- they’ll be seeking different markets of their own accord.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Michael here is convinced by General Benckendorff that there’s a noble coup brewing- the Decembrists are only presented to him as “a group of loyal soldiers ready to serve Russia”. They by all means manipulated him into acting.

No matter how naive Michael gets thanks to plot armour he wouldn't use only the Decembrists, he certainly knows other generals who are "loyal soldiers ready to serve Russia".

The republicans give up when it starts LOOKING alike the US is unravelling- revolts on the frontier, riots in the north, and losses on the front- all of these also serve to demoralize the people.

We clearly have a different definition of "imploding".

This plan of action makes it look like the US doesn’t see the UK as a threat- capturing Halifax at the least would be a top priority in case of war with Britain.

It's more like the US cannot win an offensive operation in Canada while it's busy fighting itself, the best plan would be to try to use militias for defence, the downside is that Britain can freely prepare its offensive operations.

DC isn’t the only front- it’s likely offensives on the missisippi are halted to reinforce the north.

They are defending on the mississippi, reinforcing the north with these troops would be very bad since the ACW was won on the Mississippi and because it would let the Confederate advance further.

Once the UK starts advancing they’re dealing with several partisans behind their lines disrupting every operation, and the civil war becomes a war of survival for the US- it escalates the war in peoples minds and the UK may not want such a long term headache.

I'm pretty sure not everyone will be so enthusiast, New England could be calmed if you give it promises of independence and the guys revolting in NYC to not fight won't really fight the Brits; and if the Brits get to NYC then the US is lost.

Weapons aren’t as likely- I don’t think there’d be any official UK supply of arms making their way to the CS- the small-scale private contributions may still occur, but that’s still small.

They can buy them, just as food and they are making profit from cotton to supply their war effort, they don't need things for free.

The act of secession would be far less concrete than that- its more a group of politicians declaring New York independent as a fuck you to the US, there isn’t a city-wide mobilization effort, the only real forces they have are the people who actively support them.

Governors don't have a reason to declare independence if no one wants to have independence, they're trying to champion themselves as the defenders of the peoples' will (it's unlikely any governor would ally himself with Irish immigrants) or something like that, they're not going to declare independence if no one wants independence, it would make them unpopular and would mean repercussions on your political career.

Except now they can play into European and Confederate hands, too.

The Confederates are not able to influence things like the US, they have much less trade with LatAm, have a weaker industry and economy etc.
The Europeans are very far away and aren't as interested in the Americas as the US is and are not able to have its geopolitical reach from the other side of the Atlantic, if they could've they would've done it IOTL.

That’s only if you’re openly and consistently aggressive to the US. Trent is pushing it, but it can definitely be argued by the British that they only wished to ensure the security of their trade. If they openly supply the CS, there’s no such narrative.

"Security of your trade" is not an excuse to go to war.

The British ship wouldn’t have been stopped had there been no blockade.

Not really, it was an US ship who stopped a UK one because it had Confederate envoys, it wasn't a consequence of the blockade.

In the British view the US was infringing on the rights of a neutral nation- the US navy had intercepted a British ship meant for diplomatic nations, it would likely be spun as a method of safeguarding their ships.

It doesn't really change much, it's not British ships who are getting blockaded so they don't have a good reason, the US navy could still block British ships if it wanted without the blockade.

That’s exactly what changes here though- a worse US response (possibly due to delayed orders from Lincoln) would mean that the issue goes far worse, and is what brings Britain to demand terms.

How can you have a much worse response than OTL? Even if Lincoln is slower to react the Brits still won't go to war unless you change a lot of things pre-war.

They never state things clearly- it’s always the implication of war, the idea that “we have a deal for you- you better not mess with us.”

That's not how you treat a nation that is similar in power to you, you can randomly threaten war with the weak colonized/puppet states but you can't do this to the US and IOTL they weren't keen on demanding the end of the blockade:

As a naval power, Britain had a long record of insisting that neutral nations honor its blockades of hostile countries. From the earliest days of the war, that perspective would guide the British away from taking any action that might have been viewed in Washington as a direct challenge to the Union blockade. From the perspective of the South, British policy amounted to de facto support for the Union blockade and caused great frustration.[4]

Russia has a larger army- it thus has much higher food needs. Russian agriculture wasn’t always productive, and there were several famines under the Russian Empire despite their position as granary of Europe.

That's because IOTL they were keen on mobilizing every single young man in the Russian Empire, they had a lot of troops which served basically nothing since they couldn't transport them to the front and therefore were reserves, here they have a much better infrastructure which would make it easier for them, Germany is having more severe problems than Russia in feeding its armies.

Austria wouldn’t dream of doing something so risky without a German guarantee of support- they felt secure because they thought that Russia would back down with a German threat.

That is true, however my point is that the Austrians weren't against creating a wider European conflict if Russia was to back Serbia.

They are unquestionably the big two- the conclusions aren’t hard to come to for most people.

But other GP aren't as irrelevant as IOTL Cold War, obviously Russia and Germany are the two superpowers however the US, Japan, Italy, France are also important.

It’s the same situation for Britain- they were just as if not more scared of Russia’s growth during the great game, but circumstance forced them to be allies and the outlook changed. Germany and its high command are simply not as scared of Russia if they are on friendly terms- the increased cooperation also gives them more insight on the actual functioning of Russia’s economy- which would not be showing signs of overwhelming Germany anytime soon.

Britain allied itself with Russia because there was a bigger, more dangerous threat called Germany which was trying to outcompete Britain on seas, a thing absolutely unacceptable. Germany doesn't have another threat which means that fighting Russia is their main goal. Germany won't know particularly more how Russia works, the Russians aren't going to tell all of their secrets to the Germans and neither will the Germans to the Russians; and what the Germans will see will scare them even more, Russia is near achieving a level of industrialization of the same level as Germany so you have to act now otherwise you will be defeated.

They had a school for deception formed only in 1904- there wasn’t any actual operational use of it by the Empire as far as I know.

No, but it will be developed further so I wouldn't say they won't use it.

That doesn’t mean they’ll collapse so soon though- the war doesn’t necessarily start out taxing, and much of Germanys trade and production remains the same. Russia is certainly hit much worse economically when the war starts, given two avenues of worldwide trade are suddenly shut down.

The Med won't be blocked immediately since they hold Constantinople and most of Russia's trade passes trough the Bosphorus.

Aside from the various islands that held value in the ports they provide for Britain- that leaves Malaya and Africa.

Malaya held great value as a way for Britain to control the trade routes of SE Asia- the Malacca strait especially, and much of the commerce coming out of SE Asia would have to go through Britain.

Africa was a mixed bag, but generally the resources of the continent and the strategic placement of various countries allowed Britain to better influence its other colonies and further develop the motherland.

The islands were also unprofitable, they were useful when there were conflicts in the area but most of the time they were just sitting there and are a waste of money.
More than Malaya I would say Singapore and areas around it, having parts of Borneo and all of the border with Thailand to the North is kind of useless.
Africa was unprofitable.
You're also forgetting the Arabs, Guyana, Belize...
Also not all parts of India were profitable, the core of the Raj was modern day India; Burma, Nepal etc. were kind of useless.

And now you have to think about the fact that added to the fact that most of the empire is a waste of money that the colonies were often revolting against the British and that considerable resources had to be invested to keep them down. There's a reason they gave up on them.

They hit a wall at the Maginot, for one, and in the North they’ll be met with various choke points around the border with France once they overrun the lowland- the land between the defence line and the sea is small enough that it’s a choke point the WAllies can effectively defend- they have a lot more developed airfields in the area (namely Britain) than the Soviets do, so the Soviets will continue to take high casualties while they advance.

For one the Maginot line is abandoned since 1940 meaning that it's not operational at the moment, for two you have to be able to defend Maginot, after the battles that you have fought in Germany (where you mostly lost) you'll have to be able to regroup effectively and post your troops in the Maginot line and going trough the Ardennes isn't unthinkable, the Soviets will manage since you simply don't have enough soldiers to oppose them effectively (again they have two soldiers for every Brit-American & they are better equipped and lead), your airfoce will do damage to the Soviets but they can't win the war by themselves.

The guy was a drug addict- he made a lot of strategic mistakes during the war, even if the luftwaffe was doomed from the start- he hastened its demise.

Hitler was also drug addict and I can start talking about all the much more important mistakes Hitler did, honestly I would prefer being under Goering than under Hitler he's less of an idealist (in the sense that he is able to do rational choices not based on ideology) and is slightly less horrible than Hitler is, though obviously he's a Nazi so what do you expect.

Germany CANT capitulate Britain, though; there’s no scenario in which they do. It’s not like the materials for Barbarossa are useful against Britain, who’s already won the war in the air and at sea.

Not throwing all resources available on Barbarossa would mean more resources for the navy and Luftwaffe, it probably won't be enough to make Churchill surrender but the Brits will have a hard time.

Germany is still getting starved of resources the longer the war goes on- they’ll starve even without Barbarossa.

But they'll starve more slowly and for the moment there is trade with the USSR for raw materials.

I was thinking more in the context of European politics it brings Italy closer to Spain.

It does but on the other side Spain is less willing to ally itself with Germany which could mean neutrality or delayed entry in WW2.

Even if the Russian navy is superior, that is largely seen in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, Russia’s priorities- the pacific fleet was often an afterthought, and Japan greatly benefits from that.

It used much of the Japanese navy IOTL in the Russo-Japanese war, here they have a much better navy meaning that there won't be enough ships to spare for a Pearl Harbour.

Russia doesn’t always have the most sound foreign policy, either- they made plenty of idiotic mistakes OTL, and without characters like Litvinov a qualified foreign minister isn’t guaranteed.

And Germany has Whilhelm II, neither of the two sides are incredible at diplomacy but they both will manage the basic stuff and I would argue that Russian foreign policy wasn't particularly bad pre-WW1.

This is comparable to Britain and the US- Germany still has too many advantages for now for this to be a defining factor.

Germany doesn't have much advantages, their only advantage is a society better prepared for war and being more industrialized, your "Prussian meritocracy" isn't an advantage, Hindenburg was an exception just as Tukhachevsky was, most generals were like Erich von Falkenhayn (though he was an exception in his idea to reach a compromised peace deal); the German command will suffer similar problems of the Russian command..

This is no less crazy than openly attacking Russia only 10-20 years after the last war which people still remember and hate with all their might- Germany clearly isn’t showing the most sound foreign policy decisions, and this attack likely only comes late in the war once Germany is desperate.

They're not that crazy, the idea behind attacking Russia immediately is to prevent it to catch up with Germany further, the Germans perfectly know that attacking Britain is pure suicide.

Rubber is a crucial resource for warfare, and something Russia does not have a domestic supply of. If Britain and Japan both Block the Russian supply, then Russia will be starving for Rubber soon. OTL they managed to substitute it for a lower quality plant grown in Central Asia, but given Central Asia is likely far less developed than it was OTL under the USSR, its not guaranteed the same thing occurs.

Britain won't join, Russia's rubber supply will pass and if they really lack rubber they will do the same thing the Soviets did.

Germany is rebuilding from a strong place- it had just gained a vast new empire, and would be receiving large reparations from the defeated powers- they’d be getting up on their feet much sooner, especially without the effects of a Great Depression like what happened to the Entente powers OTL.

Yes, but buying something from the British is basically only done after WW1, Britain will also recover (the war reparations are likely minor on Britain) and won't need to sell Nigeria to Germany nor very willing to.

The raw materials of the other parts of their empire required a large initial investment- in the long term they would’ve been profitable, Germany just never got to see that.

Not really, investments would mostly go into the Congo and the colonies might be more profitable than before the war but they won't suddenly become profitable very soon.

This does not immediately mean that all oil is directed to the war- neither would be in total war, especially not at the beginning.

Total war is immediate, once you go to war you can't go at it half-heartedly, total mobilization, rationing etc. are immediately put in place; other productions are almost non-existent, most of the able workforce and resources are on the front, there ain't much left to produce other things.

you can sell them to buy food, though- and the point is that they have fertile land.

Cash crops are often planted on land that isn't fertile for anything else, ex. the Caribbean wasn't fertile but it was the biggest producer of sugar, cacao etc.

I don’t exactly have a major in Zimbabwean history, but wasn’t that just mismanaged land reform?

They kicked white farmers who were the vast majority of farmers and that was something that remained from the colonial era, so I wouldn't say that it was rare that white settlers owned farms.

Why’s that?

Because the territories it annexed are just other land-owner elite dominated areas meaning that any reform which would turn away from agriculture will be even harder to achieve.

There’s a reason popularity for the Kaiser dropped following WW1- he was seen as a relic of an era where Germany had lost, he represented the system that lost the war for them.

The Kaiser was responsible for Germany's defeat while the US system is not responsible for the defeat in the ACW and many accused Jews of being responsible for the German defeat instead of the Kaiser.

Good relations with Italy count a lot more than maximalizing relations with Serbia. There’s no world where Russia sees Italy giving up Dalmatia as realistic, so their goals would be elsewhere.

All of Dalmatia? No. Parts of Dalmatia? Very much yes, Russia wants to strengthen its allies and this is a way to do so; if Italy isn't willing to give an inch of territory to Serbia why would you give the Italians something in exchange? It would show that Italy has non-negotiable ambitions in the Balkans = conflict with Russia.

Italy is a major power in the area- its support would make the new state all the more secure.

There's no threat on Yugoslavia except for Italy itself, the population is happy to be liberated from the Habsburgs and no one will threaten Yugoslavia except for Italy which has ambitions on it, why would you give territories to Italy if it doesn't make any compromies in exchange? Already getting Cyprus is unlikely and the Italians would like to spend diplomatic capital on getting the Ionian islands.
Also what kind of support? The diplomatic one is kind of useless since there is no threat to the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes" (Yugoslavia comes later) and material one is not something the Italians are willing to join nor something the Serbians need and if they did Russia can do that for them.

Why’s that? Italy only really developed a taste for Balkan influence after Mussolinis rise AFAIK.

Getting all of Dalmatia and Albania was a goal of all Italian leaders.

That’s largely all they want.

What they want is strengthening Serbia not giving territories to Italy for nothing in exchange, they will give Syria if Italy gives enough in exchange.

Not always. You’d be surprised how quickly a lot of people threw their lives away- many of the volunteers to Greece in the Greco-Ottoman war were educated, often well off individuals, as it is they who idealized Greece as the founder of western civilization- the average peasant didn’t care.

Yes, but that's not the case with the CS, there's no lord who will do the same thing for them and the average peasant or worker doesn't care here either.

They all have different interests, though- they’ll be seeking different markets of their own accord.

They'll mostly focus on continuing their businesses.