Union and Liberty: An American TL
- Thread starter wilcoxchar
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Still working on the next update, but I finally got a map of the northwest US front done. This is showing the army movements up to where the TL is now, and relevant settlements. Also, the base layer map can be found here.
Indeed, it's a very good map. Personally I'm holding out hope that the US takes and keeps Southern Ontario* if any land is kept period. As it is, I wonder whether America would be more ally or simply co-belligerent at this point?
*It always seems that America can pick up Pacific NW territory, but Eastern Canada always seems unassailable or off-limits. Having the Golden Horseshoe in US hands would at least be something different
.
*It always seems that America can pick up Pacific NW territory, but Eastern Canada always seems unassailable or off-limits. Having the Golden Horseshoe in US hands would at least be something different
.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Two: Colonial Land Offensives
The next update is finally done! I'll probably get a map of the African part up later.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Two: Colonial Land Offensives
Asain Landings:
In Asia, the war continued with its cat and mouse tactics between the New Coalition and the French and Korean navies. Up north, there was little conflict through 1908, though Japan and Russia continued their raiding of the Corean coast. In 1909, however, after the winter had subsided and the seas were ice-free again, the Russo-Japanese navies launched another landing on Corea. This landing took place at the mouth of the Hyeongsan River, in an attempt to capture Taegu from the east through a small cut in the Taebaek mountains. The landing captured Pohang on the coast, and went up the river. However, in the Battle of Gweongju in the valley west of the city, the Corean army stopped the largely Japanese advance. After two months the attack was driven back to the sea, though the landing party maintained a foothold on the remote Homigot Point northeast of Pohang.
While the Japanese landed in Corea, the Royal Navy further south continued its campaign against the French in the South China Sea. Rather than launching another invasion of Taiwan, the British commander of the China fleet sailed out of Hong Kong toward Hainan. If Hainan fell, then France would have little presence left in east Asia. The East Indies Fleet had boarded a marine regiment in Singapore and in July of 1909 the two fleets coordinated the invasion. The China fleet shelled Qiongshan harbor and engaged the French fleet there, while the East Indies fleet at Wenchang on the east coast of the island near a valuable harbor inlet. The British regiment captured the town. A month later, the regiment approached the outskirts of Qiongshan. Despite the bombarding of the city, its position was protected by being slightly inland. The French fleet had been battered, but the smaller ships still sat in the Nandu River separating Qiongshan from the British regiment. The regiment struggled to gain a crossing of the river for weeks, but all attempts failed. The expedition was called off and the regiment retreated to Wengchan where the British retained a foothold on the island.
Ostafrikan Expeditions:
In Africa, the conflict remained mostly limited to the more developed south of the continent. The Cape Fleet of the Royal Navy kept firm control of the sea lanes between India and the Cape of Good Hope, but New Coalition control of the land and the interior of southern Africa was much more tenuous. The South African Republic still bore the brunt of the fighting with the British and Portuguese colonial armies. The governors of the Cape Colony were eager to quash what they still saw as a Voortrekker rebellion. However, the Voortrekkers soon dug in with heavily armed forts quickly constructed around the border of the Oranje state. With many of the Voortrekkers armed, the militias added a powerful contingent to the forts. In a Cape offensive from Hope Town in April 1909, the more organized British were turned back after a decisive battle at Jacobsdal. The winter saw the border firmly settle at the Orange River and South Africa finally gain an upper hand in the west. In a spring offensive by the Voortrekkers, both Mafeking and Hope Town fell and a Griqua uprising encouraged South Africa to advance into Bechuanaland.
The German expeditions under Reinhard Kandt had reached a fair way into Katanga and the northernmost parts of British Southern Africa, but the British fort at Victoria proved too well garrisoned for Kandt to breach. Instead in 1909, Kandt was joined by another German expedition sent into the interior from Zanzibar. While Kandt turned south around Victoria toward the Kafue River, the second expedition led by explorer Hermann Wissmann[1] went down the Luangwa River. While Wissmann's expedition found little settlement along the river, Kandt encountered the British settlemtns in the Copperbelt and encountered chief Mwata, son of the deposed chief Msiri of the Bayeke Kingdom[2].
The Bayeke Kingdom had ruled over much of the area of Katanga and further south before the discovery of copper and other minerals in the region brought the British in. However, Kandt found that Msiri was originally from Tabora in Tanganjika. After finding this, Kandt led Mwata from the mines and moved the exiled chief back to Tanganjika. From there, Mwata led a Ostafrikan funded expedition into northern Katanga to regain the Bayeke kingdom as a German native protectorate. Soon, the other native kingdoms north of the Zambezi River that had become subservient to the Cape Colony learned of Kandt's offer. Wissmann, whose expedition down the Luangwa River had ended in disaster[3] with disease and a skirmish at the Portuguese settlement at Feira[4], set forth in August 1909 to gain the allegiance of chief Lewanika of the Barotse[5]. Lewanika had long been unsatisfied by the one-sided terms of the agreement the Cape Colony had made with the Barotse, and by 1910 the Bemba, Bayeke, and Barotse kingdoms were all assisting the German war effort in Africa. With native assistance, Kandt and Wissmann's expeditions drove the British from Victoria in March of 1910 and seized the copper mine at Burnham[6] a month later.
[1] An OTL German explorer.
[2] Mwata is a fictional son of Msiri. In OTL, an adopted son was chosen as Msiri's successor and the Yeke kingdom was divided up by the British.
[3] The Luangwa River Valley is steep and more of a dividing river valley. ITTL it's the border between the British and Portuguese colonies for a while more upstream than OTL.
[4] Feira was a Portuguese settlement at what is today Luangwa, Zambia, where the Luangwa River flows into the Zambezi.
[5] Lewanika brought Barotseland under British control in OTL.
[6] OTL Kabwe (formerly Broken Hill), Zambia. ITTL named for Frederick Russell Burnham.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Two: Colonial Land Offensives
Asain Landings:
In Asia, the war continued with its cat and mouse tactics between the New Coalition and the French and Korean navies. Up north, there was little conflict through 1908, though Japan and Russia continued their raiding of the Corean coast. In 1909, however, after the winter had subsided and the seas were ice-free again, the Russo-Japanese navies launched another landing on Corea. This landing took place at the mouth of the Hyeongsan River, in an attempt to capture Taegu from the east through a small cut in the Taebaek mountains. The landing captured Pohang on the coast, and went up the river. However, in the Battle of Gweongju in the valley west of the city, the Corean army stopped the largely Japanese advance. After two months the attack was driven back to the sea, though the landing party maintained a foothold on the remote Homigot Point northeast of Pohang.
While the Japanese landed in Corea, the Royal Navy further south continued its campaign against the French in the South China Sea. Rather than launching another invasion of Taiwan, the British commander of the China fleet sailed out of Hong Kong toward Hainan. If Hainan fell, then France would have little presence left in east Asia. The East Indies Fleet had boarded a marine regiment in Singapore and in July of 1909 the two fleets coordinated the invasion. The China fleet shelled Qiongshan harbor and engaged the French fleet there, while the East Indies fleet at Wenchang on the east coast of the island near a valuable harbor inlet. The British regiment captured the town. A month later, the regiment approached the outskirts of Qiongshan. Despite the bombarding of the city, its position was protected by being slightly inland. The French fleet had been battered, but the smaller ships still sat in the Nandu River separating Qiongshan from the British regiment. The regiment struggled to gain a crossing of the river for weeks, but all attempts failed. The expedition was called off and the regiment retreated to Wengchan where the British retained a foothold on the island.
Ostafrikan Expeditions:
In Africa, the conflict remained mostly limited to the more developed south of the continent. The Cape Fleet of the Royal Navy kept firm control of the sea lanes between India and the Cape of Good Hope, but New Coalition control of the land and the interior of southern Africa was much more tenuous. The South African Republic still bore the brunt of the fighting with the British and Portuguese colonial armies. The governors of the Cape Colony were eager to quash what they still saw as a Voortrekker rebellion. However, the Voortrekkers soon dug in with heavily armed forts quickly constructed around the border of the Oranje state. With many of the Voortrekkers armed, the militias added a powerful contingent to the forts. In a Cape offensive from Hope Town in April 1909, the more organized British were turned back after a decisive battle at Jacobsdal. The winter saw the border firmly settle at the Orange River and South Africa finally gain an upper hand in the west. In a spring offensive by the Voortrekkers, both Mafeking and Hope Town fell and a Griqua uprising encouraged South Africa to advance into Bechuanaland.
The German expeditions under Reinhard Kandt had reached a fair way into Katanga and the northernmost parts of British Southern Africa, but the British fort at Victoria proved too well garrisoned for Kandt to breach. Instead in 1909, Kandt was joined by another German expedition sent into the interior from Zanzibar. While Kandt turned south around Victoria toward the Kafue River, the second expedition led by explorer Hermann Wissmann[1] went down the Luangwa River. While Wissmann's expedition found little settlement along the river, Kandt encountered the British settlemtns in the Copperbelt and encountered chief Mwata, son of the deposed chief Msiri of the Bayeke Kingdom[2].
The Bayeke Kingdom had ruled over much of the area of Katanga and further south before the discovery of copper and other minerals in the region brought the British in. However, Kandt found that Msiri was originally from Tabora in Tanganjika. After finding this, Kandt led Mwata from the mines and moved the exiled chief back to Tanganjika. From there, Mwata led a Ostafrikan funded expedition into northern Katanga to regain the Bayeke kingdom as a German native protectorate. Soon, the other native kingdoms north of the Zambezi River that had become subservient to the Cape Colony learned of Kandt's offer. Wissmann, whose expedition down the Luangwa River had ended in disaster[3] with disease and a skirmish at the Portuguese settlement at Feira[4], set forth in August 1909 to gain the allegiance of chief Lewanika of the Barotse[5]. Lewanika had long been unsatisfied by the one-sided terms of the agreement the Cape Colony had made with the Barotse, and by 1910 the Bemba, Bayeke, and Barotse kingdoms were all assisting the German war effort in Africa. With native assistance, Kandt and Wissmann's expeditions drove the British from Victoria in March of 1910 and seized the copper mine at Burnham[6] a month later.
[1] An OTL German explorer.
[2] Mwata is a fictional son of Msiri. In OTL, an adopted son was chosen as Msiri's successor and the Yeke kingdom was divided up by the British.
[3] The Luangwa River Valley is steep and more of a dividing river valley. ITTL it's the border between the British and Portuguese colonies for a while more upstream than OTL.
[4] Feira was a Portuguese settlement at what is today Luangwa, Zambia, where the Luangwa River flows into the Zambezi.
[5] Lewanika brought Barotseland under British control in OTL.
[6] OTL Kabwe (formerly Broken Hill), Zambia. ITTL named for Frederick Russell Burnham.
And here's a quick map. I know it's cluttered but hopefully everything is clear enough.
It would be nice if this was done. As for why there weren't any comments on the posts, I think that we were waiting for another update.
Yeah, the basemap I used wasn't the best, but I couldn't find one with the detail I wanted that was more zoomed out. The light grey is the OTL modern day country borders, while the TTL colonial borders are in black except where they follow rivers. The map covers basically OTL Zambia and around. I hope that helps.
Man! I actually hadnt noticed the update! Cant bive i missed it.
Its really cool you ar foucusing on unknown fronts of the wat (you rearly see an African front news in any TL). Kudos on that man.
I also like how Germany, since it had a long precence in Africa in TTL isn't really behaving like OTLs Germany did with its small Empire. They seem to have quite a bit an good experience dealing with Native kings.
Wonder if this can lead to a few native kingdoms arising later on a buffer states.
Keep it up man! TTL rocks!
Its really cool you ar foucusing on unknown fronts of the wat (you rearly see an African front news in any TL). Kudos on that man.
I also like how Germany, since it had a long precence in Africa in TTL isn't really behaving like OTLs Germany did with its small Empire. They seem to have quite a bit an good experience dealing with Native kings.
Wonder if this can lead to a few native kingdoms arising later on a buffer states.
Keep it up man! TTL rocks!
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That has actually been the TL's biggest mystery. It seems it was Wilcox's original plan but it has changed since then.
The California debate between fans pops up every now and then. And I expect it to pop up again as we approach the end of the war.
It might also lead to a much less painful decolonization process in the future. An update on the methods and practices of the colonial rule of the various powers might be interesting (if such already exists, oops
)
Part One Hundred Twenty-Three: Other Effects of the Great War
Next update's done!
Part One Hundred Twenty-Three: Other Effects of the Great War
A Diversion of Trade:
For the United States, the actual conflict zones in the Great War stayed on the fringes of the country, not reaching the American heartland. The war still bad a great effect on the region, however, in the form of a large economic boon that lasted for years after the war. Prior to the war, much of the iron, copper, and wheat produced in the northern Plains states and Marquette was sent east to the Great Lakes and through the Erie Canal to New York. When the fighting near Buffalo and Detroit began, many mines and farms feared losses from the closure of that route and sought a new route for sending their products to export. The most logical route, therefore, was down the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River already saw a large amount of traffic as on of the main waterways of the country. But during the Great War, trade on the river exploded. Now instead of sending goods east, they were sent south to Saint Louis and Cairo. From there the freight either continued down the river to New Orleans or went up the Ohio and to Mid-Atlantic industrial centers such as Philadelphia and Baltimore. Irish and free black migration to Saint Louis and other cities provided plentiful labor for dockworkers. Tensions were heated in the early 20th century, and racial violence was not uncommon. In Cairo, the population according to the 1910 census was majority black, one of the few such communities in the North at the time[1].
One of the beneficiaries of the shift in trade was the Desloge family in Missouri[2]. The Desloge family made their fortune in the iron and lead mines of southern Missouri in the 1870s and 1880s. Firmin Desloge Jr. built up many of the mines around the towns of Potosi and Bonne Terre and as a minerals magnate headed one of the wealthiest families in Missouri. The Desloge Lead Company had many smelters in the area, and the offloading of iron and copper being sent downriver brought a boom to southeast Missouri. The city of Sainte Genevieve, being the nearest port to the Desloge mining towns, doubled from 15,000 people to 32,000 between 1900 and 1910[3].
The Olympics that Wasn't:
The length of the Great War and its expansion to a worldwide scope also influenced the world of sports. After the war began in 1906, there was some debate among the members of the International Olympic Committee on whether to continue holding the Olympics. However, after Theodore Roosevelt convinced the committee to go through with the 1906 Olympics, the preparations for 1910 began.
The problems involved in setting up the 1910 Olympics began straight away, as there was no clear location where the committee members from countries on both sides of the conflict could meet. At last, in 1907, the Olympic Committee began a series of meetings in Brussels. They immediately set out the requirement that if the Great War was not over by 1910, that the participants in the conflict would have to abide by the Olympic truce during the opening ceremonies. This was a great peace overture, but with the escalation of the war few of the countries involved signed the agreement. The Olympic Committee selected Amsterdam as a nearby neutral city as the prospective host.
Unfortunately as the war dragged on, the hope that the Great War would be over in time for the Olympics quickly faded. After the entry of the United States into the war, the Olympic Committee met again in Brussels in 1909 and announced that the planned Olympiad for the next year would be cancelled. However, the Netherlands still held a small sporting event in 1910 now known as the Neutrality Games. The participants were all smaller neutral countries, and athletes from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland competed. The games were unofficial and the winners are not included in the medal count. Amsterdam went on to host the 1914 Olympics when the games resumed.
[1] In OTL Cairo was almost half African-American at the time, so just a little more push gives a majority.
[2] Firmin Desloge was one of the wealthiest men in the country because of the profits.
[3] For comparison, Sainte Genevieve County had about 10,000 people at this time in OTL.
Part One Hundred Twenty-Three: Other Effects of the Great War
A Diversion of Trade:
For the United States, the actual conflict zones in the Great War stayed on the fringes of the country, not reaching the American heartland. The war still bad a great effect on the region, however, in the form of a large economic boon that lasted for years after the war. Prior to the war, much of the iron, copper, and wheat produced in the northern Plains states and Marquette was sent east to the Great Lakes and through the Erie Canal to New York. When the fighting near Buffalo and Detroit began, many mines and farms feared losses from the closure of that route and sought a new route for sending their products to export. The most logical route, therefore, was down the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River already saw a large amount of traffic as on of the main waterways of the country. But during the Great War, trade on the river exploded. Now instead of sending goods east, they were sent south to Saint Louis and Cairo. From there the freight either continued down the river to New Orleans or went up the Ohio and to Mid-Atlantic industrial centers such as Philadelphia and Baltimore. Irish and free black migration to Saint Louis and other cities provided plentiful labor for dockworkers. Tensions were heated in the early 20th century, and racial violence was not uncommon. In Cairo, the population according to the 1910 census was majority black, one of the few such communities in the North at the time[1].
One of the beneficiaries of the shift in trade was the Desloge family in Missouri[2]. The Desloge family made their fortune in the iron and lead mines of southern Missouri in the 1870s and 1880s. Firmin Desloge Jr. built up many of the mines around the towns of Potosi and Bonne Terre and as a minerals magnate headed one of the wealthiest families in Missouri. The Desloge Lead Company had many smelters in the area, and the offloading of iron and copper being sent downriver brought a boom to southeast Missouri. The city of Sainte Genevieve, being the nearest port to the Desloge mining towns, doubled from 15,000 people to 32,000 between 1900 and 1910[3].
The Olympics that Wasn't:
The length of the Great War and its expansion to a worldwide scope also influenced the world of sports. After the war began in 1906, there was some debate among the members of the International Olympic Committee on whether to continue holding the Olympics. However, after Theodore Roosevelt convinced the committee to go through with the 1906 Olympics, the preparations for 1910 began.
The problems involved in setting up the 1910 Olympics began straight away, as there was no clear location where the committee members from countries on both sides of the conflict could meet. At last, in 1907, the Olympic Committee began a series of meetings in Brussels. They immediately set out the requirement that if the Great War was not over by 1910, that the participants in the conflict would have to abide by the Olympic truce during the opening ceremonies. This was a great peace overture, but with the escalation of the war few of the countries involved signed the agreement. The Olympic Committee selected Amsterdam as a nearby neutral city as the prospective host.
Unfortunately as the war dragged on, the hope that the Great War would be over in time for the Olympics quickly faded. After the entry of the United States into the war, the Olympic Committee met again in Brussels in 1909 and announced that the planned Olympiad for the next year would be cancelled. However, the Netherlands still held a small sporting event in 1910 now known as the Neutrality Games. The participants were all smaller neutral countries, and athletes from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland competed. The games were unofficial and the winners are not included in the medal count. Amsterdam went on to host the 1914 Olympics when the games resumed.
[1] In OTL Cairo was almost half African-American at the time, so just a little more push gives a majority.
[2] Firmin Desloge was one of the wealthiest men in the country because of the profits.
[3] For comparison, Sainte Genevieve County had about 10,000 people at this time in OTL.
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