Question regarding TL-191 (American occupation of the CSA)

I have read many internet sites about TL-191 and quite a few of your posts, maps and scenarios on the Southern Victory series.
Is it really clear that the US annexed the Confederate States after the Second Great war, like most of your maps depict it? Or is only occupation clear? If the latter is true, what do you think about the idea that the US might have put remnant blacks and Marxists in charge of a "Southern Socialist Republic"? After all, here, there is no Soviet Union and thus not such an intense red scare, rather, the Socialist Party is a legitimate and electable party in the US party system.
 
At the end of the book series, all of the former Confederacy is under U.S. occupation, except for the newly formed Republic of Texas. However, it is implied that annexation will happen eventually.

There aren't really enough Blacks to really set up a socialist Black Republic.

I speculate here, but a major policy for the United States would be to become a fiercely anti-racist nation that tries to assimilate surviving Confederate Blacks as American citizens. The government wouldn't allow the idea for people of different backgrounds to be "separate but equal" to continue and would instead support the idea of compelled diversity in the same country in order to avoid another event like Featherston's genocide.
 
There aren't really enough Blacks to really set up a socialist Black Republic.

Might they cooperate with white Marxists from the USA or even the few white Marxists from the CSA= Or attract Marxist persecuted refugees from Europe or other parts of the world - there is seemingly no Marxist nation in the world of TL-191 as of 1944?
 
No, I really think that by 1944, after all the horrors of the past 80 years, the USA would want to annex and reintegrate the CSA. They do not want a separate Southern nation, even a "Socialist Republic"
 
Might they cooperate with white Marxists from the USA or even the few white Marxists from the CSA= Or attract Marxist persecuted refugees from Europe or other parts of the world - there is seemingly no Marxist nation in the world of TL-191 as of 1944?

In TL-191, there are no Marxist nations on Earth... at least for now. I am of the inclination that the idea of Communism (at least in Europe) was "aborted" before it could be born. (Not the most pleasant analogy, sorry). Ideally, I would like to think that Communism never tries to show up again, but I suppose that in a more realistic scenario, there would be future attempts, but they happen in smaller, insignificant nations that never grow to become an existential threat to the international community.
 
I am of the inclination that the idea of Communism (at least in Europe) was "aborted" before it could be born. (Not the most pleasant analogy, sorry).

Do we really know that much about TL-191 Europe? We do at least have the information that, in Russia, the Red Army needed a 10 year civil war to defeat. Why do you think there should have been no other communist revolutions/attempts?
 
Do we really know that much about TL-191 Europe? We do at least have the information that, in Russia, the Red Army needed a 10 year civil war to defeat. Why do you think there should have been no other communist revolutions/attempts?

Because Communism sucks and it never works? Haha.

I am just speculating what Turtledove could have written about. Others have written their own version of a potential communist state being created decades after the end of the Second Great War. Perhaps Russia eventually goes Communist. Maybe China, too. Or maybe Just China. Perhaps Latin America/Africa experience communist revolutions.
 
I t could be argued that the USA did not annex the CSA but merely reoccupied old territory. No doubt a peace treaty would have to be torn up, but nothing that Congress could not vote on.
 
I sort of saw it playing out as in our history. The US annexes some pieces of territory but leaves the rest of it alone under the grip of occupation military forces and puppet governments (sort of like a territory I guess). I'd imagine that by 1944 the cultures of the two countries would have been so different and people too worried about potentially bringing in large quantities of former Freedomites/Confederates that outright annexation and statehood would never have happened except for a select few entities like Kentucky, Houston, and maybe Tennessee and Confederate Mexico.

I see the US annexing KY, TN, more of northern VA, Sonora, Chihuahua and then having a Kaliningrad analog out of New Orleans. The rest of the South would be carved up into puppets akin to Texas or Quebec.
The USA is more likely to make Sonora and Chihuahua into a puppet state than the former US states. If the government did not annex the latter straight after the war then some populist will run on a Unionist ticket and seize them if they win. "Once part of the Union, forever part of the Union (unless you are Texan ;))"
 
Is it really clear that the US annexed the Confederate States after the Second Great war, like most of your maps depict it?

If memory serves me correctly, I think that towards the end of In at the Death, US President Dewey travels down to occupied Florida and tells an audience of presumably friendly Confederates that the US will annex the entire defeated Confederacy. Don't recall his exact words, but I believe that his speech was something to that effect.

Also, in my opinion, it just seems impossible for the US to ever consider allowing the defeated Confederacy to every have independence again, and although fierce resistance might occur for the first few years after the war, the US essentially holds all of the cards in the defeated Confederacy, and sooner or later the defeated people of the Confederacy are going to have to ask themselves which is more important, putting food on their own tables, or carrying on a pointless resistance against the US occupation? I imagine that the US might be willing to use some pretty harsh measures such as artificially enduced food shortages and famine in order to help cow the Confederate people into submission. With no hope of military assistance coming from the outside world (ie, Britain, France, Russia, or Japan) the Confederate resistance would probably crumble by 1947 or so, and by 1957 the last Confederate state would probably be readmitted back into the US. Just my two cents.

https://postimg.cc/HVhz9Br0
 
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It's an occupation with the intention of eventually re-incorporating the former CS into the US.

Given what a nightmare the CS was throughout its existence, can't see anyone in the US wanting to see an independent Confederacy again.
 
The Confederacy is placed under United States occupation, with the end goal being full incorporation into the United States. After the revelations of the Population Reduction, there's not going to be a lot of Americans who want to see any kind of independent Confederacy. Texas is up in the air, it's technically independent, but its future status is unknown. It might be annexed, it might be spun off as an independent puppet state.

If the latter is true, what do you think about the idea that the US might have put remnant blacks and Marxists in charge of a "Southern Socialist Republic"?

The Confederate States killed between 6 to 8 million Confederate blacks, from what some board members (myself included) have calculated is nearly all of their black population. There just aren't enough Confederate blacks left to create a socialist Marxist Negro state or a Southern Socialist Republic.
 
The Confederacy is placed under United States occupation, with the end goal being full incorporation into the United States. After the revelations of the Population Reduction, there's not going to be a lot of Americans who want to see any kind of independent Confederacy. Texas is up in the air, it's technically independent, but its future status is unknown. It might be annexed, it might be spun off as an independent puppet state.



The Confederate States killed between 6 to 8 million Confederate blacks, from what some board members (myself included) have calculated is nearly all of their black population. There just aren't enough Confederate blacks left to create a socialist Marxist Negro state or a Southern Socialist Republic.

Texas may get 'lucky' and Dewey let them have Independence, be it a puppet.

And I very much doubt there be many surviving blacks that would want to stay in the North. Most would be heading to Pennsylvania/Massachusetts, Haiti, or even up in Canada.
 
Texas may get 'lucky' and Dewey let them have Independence, be it a puppet.

Just a brief thought on the idea of an independent Texas; the Empire of Mexico seemed to be somewhat dependent on support from both the British and the French, and with both of those countries defeated at the end of the war, would the Empire of Mexico be able to exist more than a year or two beyond that?

I was thinking that the ruling class of the Empire of Mexico would probably be a bunch of European aristocrats hold up in their palaces in Mexico City, deeply cut off from the day to day lives of the Mexican people, and not fully comprehending the possibly seething resentment against them emanating from the lower classes of Mexican society.

I know that there was a so called "Republican" movement just prior to the Second Great War, so what if the Mexican Republicans are able to overthrow the emperor and install their own national government in Mexico City (possibly with limited US help)? I imagine that one of the first things these hot blooded Republicans would want to do is to regain some of Mexico's lost territories to the north, but with California, New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua being firmly in the hands of the all powerful US, the only place that Republican Mexico might be able to regain new territory would be from an independent Texas.

The US might even use Republican Mexico as a tool to keep an independent Texas in line, and to keep them off balance as the US subdues simmering Freedom Party uprisings throughout the occupied former Confederacy. The government of Texas might also find itself simultaneously battling Freedom Party diehards as they are also dealing with the Mexican Republican Army along the Rio Grande border.

I think that maybe by 1947 or so, maybe there is a possibility that the President of Texas might tempted to approach US President Dewey on the possibility of Texas rejoining the Union. Of course, Texas president Wright Patman might have a few conditions of his own, namely that if Texas is to rejoin the Union, then the US state of Houston must be abolished, Houston's territory must be rejoined to the US state of Texas, and that Texas would be allowed to maintain its own token self defense force after rejoining the US.

Maybe Texas rejoining the Union might be the straw which eventually breaks the camel's back, and after that there would be a slow but steady dribble of former CS states rejoining the US on a regular basis.

Of course another alternative would be if the US decides to give Texas Sonora and Chihuahua, and a few years later Texas manages to get Louisiana, Arkansas, and maybe also the Sandwich Islands?
 
Of course another alternative would be if the US decides to give Texas Sonora and Chihuahua, and a few years later Texas manages to get Louisiana, Arkansas, and maybe also the Sandwich Islands?
Except for Texas all the CSA states would be reincorporated into the Union. That was one of the objectives of the war.

Exactly would happen to Sonora and Chihuahua is open to question. However, given that in the previous century the USA has already occupied California and Arizona there is no reason why it should not knock off a bit more of Mexico. The chances of Texas getting them is very unlikely.
 
Exactly would happen to Sonora and Chihuahua is open to question

I was thinking that if Mexico had changed regimes, and was no longer the Empire of Mexico, and now had a government more friendly towards the US, then maybe the US might consider returning Sonora and Chihuahua as a means of making the US more popular with the people of Mexico. I imagine that the US would probably hold onto the former Confederate naval base at Guaymas, and might even maintain an exclusive economic territorial zone around the base (similar to the British in Hong Kong) but I think that the US might be tempted to get rid of these two states for several reasons.

Firstly, as I said, returning Sonora and Chihuahua to Mexico might curry favor with the people of Mexico towards the US. Secondly, both Sonora and Chihuahua have large Hispanic populations which are relatively poor when compared to the US. Granting the Hispanics of Sonora and Chihuahua US citizenship and allowing them to migrate to other US states as American blacks are still returning from the death camps might be problematic, and might cause further racial strife. Furthermore, both states have relatively little available fresh water, making economic development and settlement a significant challenge. Also, immediately following the war, the US military will have its hands full trying to deal with sporadic uprisings in the eastern states of the occupied Confederacy. US troops garrisoned in Sonora and Chihuahua could be put to better use in the defeated Confederacy, if Sonora and Chihuahua are returned to Mexico.

One other thing I imagine is that after Sonora and Chihuahua are returned, there will be a lot of ethnic cleansing in those two states as people of Mexican heritage rise up and take revenge upon Anglo-Confederates still living there. I imagine that the Anglo-Confederate would be pushed out of power in local governments, there would be a lot of property seizures executed by the new Mexican state governments against wealthy Anglo-Confederates as they are driven from their homes, and there would be an awful lot of mob violence including looting robbing and raping before things eventually settle down again. In the end, a few Anglo-Confederates might be able to remain in their isolated communities in the mountains of Sonora and Chihuahua, but most of them are either killed, or flee to other parts of the world including Texas, Australia, South Africa, and maybe after 1950 a few are allowed into the US on humanitarian grounds. - This is just my two cent. Who knows, this is just fiction, anything can happen, just trying to make the story more interesting and believable.
 
I was thinking that if Mexico had changed regimes, and was no longer the Empire of Mexico, and now had a government more friendly towards the US, then maybe the US might consider returning Sonora and Chihuahua as a means of making the US more popular with the people of Mexico. I imagine that the US would probably hold onto the former Confederate naval base at Guaymas, and might even maintain an exclusive economic territorial zone around the base (similar to the British in Hong Kong) but I think that the US might be tempted to get rid of these two states for several reasons.
Hong Kong is not a good example as much of it was rented from China. Gibraltar will be probably a better arrangement for the USA as then Guaymas could be entirely US for ever.

Also, if Sonora and Chihuahua are going to be returned to Mexico then Cuba would have to either returned to Spain or more likely given independence.
 
Just a brief thought on the idea of an independent Texas; the Empire of Mexico seemed to be somewhat dependent on support from both the British and the French, and with both of those countries defeated at the end of the war, would the Empire of Mexico be able to exist more than a year or two beyond that?

I was thinking that the ruling class of the Empire of Mexico would probably be a bunch of European aristocrats hold up in their palaces in Mexico City, deeply cut off from the day to day lives of the Mexican people, and not fully comprehending the possibly seething resentment against them emanating from the lower classes of Mexican society.

I know that there was a so called "Republican" movement just prior to the Second Great War, so what if the Mexican Republicans are able to overthrow the emperor and install their own national government in Mexico City (possibly with limited US help)? I imagine that one of the first things these hot blooded Republicans would want to do is to regain some of Mexico's lost territories to the north, but with California, New Mexico, Sonora, and Chihuahua being firmly in the hands of the all powerful US, the only place that Republican Mexico might be able to regain new territory would be from an independent Texas.

The US might even use Republican Mexico as a tool to keep an independent Texas in line, and to keep them off balance as the US subdues simmering Freedom Party uprisings throughout the occupied former Confederacy. The government of Texas might also find itself simultaneously battling Freedom Party diehards as they are also dealing with the Mexican Republican Army along the Rio Grande border.


I was thinking that if Mexico had changed regimes, and was no longer the Empire of Mexico, and now had a government more friendly towards the US, then maybe the US might consider returning Sonora and Chihuahua as a means of making the US more popular with the people of Mexico. I imagine that the US would probably hold onto the former Confederate naval base at Guaymas, and might even maintain an exclusive economic territorial zone around the base (similar to the British in Hong Kong) but I think that the US might be tempted to get rid of these two states for several reasons.

Firstly, as I said, returning Sonora and Chihuahua to Mexico might curry favor with the people of Mexico towards the US. Secondly, both Sonora and Chihuahua have large Hispanic populations which are relatively poor when compared to the US. Granting the Hispanics of Sonora and Chihuahua US citizenship and allowing them to migrate to other US states as American blacks are still returning from the death camps might be problematic, and might cause further racial strife. Furthermore, both states have relatively little available fresh water, making economic development and settlement a significant challenge. Also, immediately following the war, the US military will have its hands full trying to deal with sporadic uprisings in the eastern states of the occupied Confederacy. US troops garrisoned in Sonora and Chihuahua could be put to better use in the defeated Confederacy, if Sonora and Chihuahua are returned to Mexico.

One other thing I imagine is that after Sonora and Chihuahua are returned, there will be a lot of ethnic cleansing in those two states as people of Mexican heritage rise up and take revenge upon Anglo-Confederates still living there. I imagine that the Anglo-Confederate would be pushed out of power in local governments, there would be a lot of property seizures executed by the new Mexican state governments against wealthy Anglo-Confederates as they are driven from their homes, and there would be an awful lot of mob violence including looting robbing and raping before things eventually settle down again. In the end, a few Anglo-Confederates might be able to remain in their isolated communities in the mountains of Sonora and Chihuahua, but most of them are either killed, or flee to other parts of the world including Texas, Australia, South Africa, and maybe after 1950 a few are allowed into the US on humanitarian grounds. - This is just my two cent. Who knows, this is just fiction, anything can happen, just trying to make the story more interesting and believable.

On both Mexico, and on Sonora and Chihuahua. I spoke to @Joshua Ben Ari and we said this.

Mexcio: It's in the best interests of the Americans to keep a friendly (if worried about his throne) monarch in Mexico City for a stable US-Mexico-Texas border. So as much as Francisco Jose II of Mexico is terrified about losing his throne, the US will keep him there because they don't want nationalist republicans (or any nationalist government) talking about the "lost land of Sonora and Chihuahua". The Union wants a stable border to the south of them, and the any messy change in government is also the last thing they want.

Sonora and Chihuahua: I very much doubt America would give those two back to Mexico. Both had small populations that would make it easy for the CSA to fill them up with setters of their own, seeing the rise of mixed race population, as well as a great deal of investment into both. There be something like 1.5 million including Confederate Whites who moved in as well by c. 1940. Guaymas is a good port and Ciudad Juarez has a good industrial manufacturing center, good climate, agriculture, tourism, and Sonora has a lot of mineral resources.

Next, any attempt at ethnic cleansing would see the American titan come down on Mexico like an Atomic Bomb. They been enough 'ethnic cleansing' of Confederate Blacks, as well as in Haiti and so on. The Anglo-Confederates and mixed race would rather live under Union Blue and speak English then the Mexican Empire. The US would keep both Confederate Hispanic states.

Plus after 60 years of being Confederate, and being part of that Anglo-Confederate culture, they're distinct from Mexico.
 
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