Decades of Darkness
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
After Lewis Mitchell had to withdraw from his planned bid for a third presidential term, he went into relatively obscure retirement for the next three years. He then emerged as a critic of Charles Bull for "losing Brazil" and continued, periodically, to offer his views on political matters as an elder statesman of sorts. (Albeit a more controversial one that most.)
He was an outspoken critic against the Democratic nomination of Harlan Porter as presidential candidate in 1920, believing him to be too isolationist and unrealistic about his pledge of neutrality. Mitchell died before the Great War broke out, but his supporters believed that he was vindicated by the demonstrated poor preparedness of U.S. forces in Europe.
Anna Mitchell and Diane Grant had a reasonably happy (if never legally sanctioned) relationship thereafter. Diane Grant remained a reporter; Anna avoided public life again for the obvious reasons.
The fate of England post-Blackwood is one of those things which will probably become relevant in the planned novels, and so I don't want to go into the details of it too much.
So I finally finished reading this TL, and I would add my voice to those who greatly enjoyed it. I do however have a couple of questions (and I apologize if they have already been answered and I missed them.)
1. Was Wilkinson's time working for Spain ever discovered, and if so how was it kept out of the public eye?
2. You mentioned earlier in the threat that the North American War turned on a coin flip (I assume which direction the British fleet faced) and that in doing so the war was decided. However, earlier it is mentioned that Mitchell was one of the greatest presidents in American history, so how would that view of him have meshed with losing the war?
1. Was Wilkinson's time working for Spain ever discovered, and if so how was it kept out of the public eye?
2. You mentioned earlier in the threat that the North American War turned on a coin flip (I assume which direction the British fleet faced) and that in doing so the war was decided. However, earlier it is mentioned that Mitchell was one of the greatest presidents in American history, so how would that view of him have meshed with losing the war?
With regards to 2., I assume Jared planned that quite a while in advance with the coin-toss happening before deciding on Mitchell's historical reputation....
teg
He never say the greatest, when the russian couple(female both) make their book of influnecial people of the history, they chosen four american:Washington and Mitchell at the end. Meaning regardless what would happen, Mitchell Action would have been big(and pretty big) and being honest, NE-GB have not trully way to win, only ask for a ceasefire and ask american not try that again.
So regardless, i think Jared did planned ahead but some action he decided the 'luck' to chose as destiny, for me Anne Mitchell Affair seems one(come from nowhere and killed Lewis masterplan)
Looking back it turned out I guess remembered wrong. I thought he had been listed among the best, not just the most influential.
It was never discovered during his lifetime. Historians probably became aware of it after his death, although I don't think I ever specified a year.
It was actually a dice roll, not a coin flip. The odds were actually weighted rather strongly toward the Allies, but the US won. C'est la vie. If things had gone otherwise, then it would have led to a rather different Great War.
Well, as others have noted, that's not quite right. Mitchell was named as one of the most influential men in world history (which he was), and that most Americans would name Cass, Davis or Mitchell as their greatest since Washington.
However, at the point when I wrote that section, I had not decided when Mitchell would be President. I knew it would be either during the North American War (not that it had that name at the time), or during the rebuilding after the war. If things had gone the other way, then Mitchell would have been the one who broke the Versailles-style shackles on the USA.
The exact cause for why Lewis Mitchell's grand re-election plans was not planned so far in advance, but I'd always planned that he would fail of re-election for a third term. The details of the Anna Mitchell case were worked out a couple of months in advance from when it was posted, if I remember right.
Not sure whether posting will count as a necro, but I’ve just re-read this beautifully crafted TL and have a few questions. Sorry if any of these have been answered before.
I’m mainly curious about Formosa because my Grandfather’s counterpart ITTL would have probably gone to *Germany to study, instead of Japan OTL (I’m Taiwanese).
- What happened to William Walker’s illegitimate son he had with a “Yucatan serf”?
- Is Formosa a restive place after the Japanese occupy it? It was never really mentioned just how the Germans treated the natives, though if some Formosans were advocating incorporating Formosa into the Reich, I don’t think the Germans were that bad. How much infrastructure was built-up in Formosa?
I’m mainly curious about Formosa because my Grandfather’s counterpart ITTL would have probably gone to *Germany to study, instead of Japan OTL (I’m Taiwanese).
Asking questions in this thread wouldn't count as a necro. The thread is still active, from time to time, and I do get around to answering questions eventually. (Though usually not quickly).
Ended up in the Jaguars - some things run in families. May, just possibly, feature in one or other of the DoD novels.
William Walker did marry eventually, though he was mostly a husband in absentia for much of his life, and he had a couple of legitimate children.
Formosa was pretty developed under German rule, mostly because they were trying to make it their valuable bastion in East Asia. So the infrastructure and so forth would have been well-established.
The indigenous Formosans (well, including Chinese immigrants) were on the whole treated relatively well. As was touched on (but never covered in detail), some of them even became quite wealthy. This was a place where the Germans were planning to stay for the long term.
Which means, of course, that there's still a great deal of lingering sympathy for the Germans even after Japanese occupation. I haven't gone into detail about whether that involves active resistance or just quiet dissatisfaction with Japanese rule. There may be a Tale in there at some point.
Don't remember exactly reading it, but is there anything representing something similar to the Hague or Geneva conventions in this ATL?
I remember there was a whole arc so to speak on Concentration Camps, but not much else in regards to the above.
I remember there was a whole arc so to speak on Concentration Camps, but not much else in regards to the above.
I believe this is what you're looking for
The ATL Versailles Convention (1910) is detailed in the last part of the post, it's most reminiscent of OTL Hague Convention I think.
The ATL Versailles Convention (1910) is detailed in the last part of the post, it's most reminiscent of OTL Hague Convention I think.
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Thank you very much.
Needs to be rewritten virtually from the beginning, thanks to a few ideas I had which I think will improve it, but means that most of what was written is no longer usable. That's not something I'm currently working on, being busy with other things in life (both AH-related and not) at the moment, but I hope to get back to it sometime next year.
I expect that by the 1920s if not earlier, New York will have grown large enough to incorporate Brooklyn.
As a general rule, not very well, though it varies from region to region. They notionally fall under the category of "peon", although some have managed to sit on the better side of the blurry dividing line between freedom and peonage. In the territories acquired since the Great War, some of them have qualified for territorial citizenship instead.
(Shameless self-advertising mode on):
I've started a new timeline which readers might be interested in, which features a Venus which is habitable due to various astronomical differences. This timeline, Into The White Planet, is now available here.
Note for lurkers: forum rules require this kind of timeline to go into the ASB forum, and therefore registration is required to read it.
(Shameless self-advertising mode off).
I've started a new timeline which readers might be interested in, which features a Venus which is habitable due to various astronomical differences. This timeline, Into The White Planet, is now available here.
Note for lurkers: forum rules require this kind of timeline to go into the ASB forum, and therefore registration is required to read it.
(Shameless self-advertising mode off).
Seeing this bumped inspired me to have a bit of a reread and one question I've got that I didn't see much discussed in the thread is the Royal Australian Navy during the Great War. I was wondering, just how did the RAN compare to the other navies during the war, size/quality wise? Also, did Australia build many of its own ships? The area I study at uni includes a lot of the debates on Australian ship building, would be fun to see a bit of a comparison with an Australia that would almost be a great power if it were in our world during the 30's.
Scotland is indeed a Commonwealth, although that can have a wide variety of meanings in the DoDverse. In Scotland's case, it could also be called the reluctant Commonwealth, since they didn't exactly aim to become so. It has a Prime Minister (still head of government) and a Governor (sort of like a President, but they refuse to use that name).
The RAN was a decent, but not overwhelmingly powerful, navy. It had started to build some of its own ships, although larger ships were still built almost exclusively in the UK. (Advantages of a captive market, to the British, and advantages of lack of design/development costs, to the Australians).
I never worked out exact numbers, but maybe something like ~3-4 times the size of the RAN of our WW2 era. Quality-wise is was quite good, being, after all, essentially up to RN standard in shipbuilding and a pretty similar benchmark in doctrine.
So probably not powerful enough that if that task force had arrived in time for East Anglia or Zero day it would have been able to tip the balance. It's a little ironic that the RAN actually became rather more powerful by being able to absorb the tattered remains of the RN (and even stole their name)!