Saratoga of the South: An Alternate History of America

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Yeah I brought that up earlier, but it's just as likely that Spain makes more of an advance themselves in West Florida, especially with the Americans pivoting North after the PoD battle. East Florida I can easily see going to the Americans, but remember, Spain was a little sick in the head with their proposals for peace, if you scroll down to Aftermath.


They had designs for West of the Appalachians and the Ohio valley. I'm not rooting for it, but Spain may have a better chance to grab more land in North America, but in any case I wouldn't see them holding it for very long.
 
With the British Navy much weaker, what's John Paul Jones up to?
He's still leading raids against the British Isles.

And in regards to Spain, they have gotten one of their magic goals in successfully getting Gibraltar as of the latest update. France, Spain, and the 13 Colonies are going to have a very strong hand going into peace talks. How they play their hand is going to go a long way to showing how the map goes.
 
Yes and no. They are doing good military but financially the allies are really weak. The US is basically insolvent, France is heavy indebted and I doubt Spain is in much better shape.
 
Chapter 13: Let's Talk Peace
Chapter 13: Let’s Talk Peace

As the campaigning season began to draw to a close, Britain was facing up to the realities of a disastrous year. The Allies had been able to win multiple decisive battles, and it had become clear to Lord North that he was going to have to find a way out of the conflict, or resign. Rumors were swirling that Parliament was going to hold a confidence vote, and that was even before the news of Boston reached London.

On January 5th, 1781 Parliament held a vote of no confidence against the North ministry. Despite the best efforts of his supporters and the King, the continued defeats and mounting costs were too much to overlook. For the first time since Robert Walpole decades earlier, a government had fallen due to a no confidence vote. The conduct of the war would be left to a new government, and one soon was formed under Lord Shelbourne. Shelbourne made the decision to push for peace, and to get the best peace that they could get, and he knew that Britain’s enemies were running out of money.

Louis XVI had spent heavily backing the Americans, and despite all of the victories that had happened since the French had intervened in the Revolution, the Americans continued to ask for more. France’s finances were so bad that there were even calls to have a meeting of the Estates General to figure out how to get out of the debts that had skyrocketed over the last couple of years. With the news of Allied victories in America, the King instructed his ministers to begin peace talks, after an agreement with his Bourbon cousins across the mountains in Spain.

The Americans were ready for peace talks to begin as well. Despite all of the attempts by Congress to pay for the war, the debts were starting to pile up, and the inability to raise a national tax to get money to provide for the war effort was going nowhere due to states still not having a national outlook. Congress authorized the beginning of peace talks, and began to communicate with their European allies on a strategy for peace talks.

The peace talks would be held on neutral ground in Vienna. Austrian Emperor Joseph II had offered to host peace talks going off his previous offers to mediate the conflict between fellow European powers. Both sides accepted, as a way to get the process started, and hammer out the issues.

Two days before the peace talks, Charles James Fox, who was one of the most notable voices in Parliament against the Revolution, gave what would be one of the most famous speeches of his career.

“When all this started, the mistakes that we as a governing body and the rest of His Majesty’s government should have been obvious. The Americans were raising what they thought the issues were. We sit here in London half the world away, and we thought we knew what conditions in America were like. As much as one can argue that the American rebels should not have raised their populace to a rebellion against His Majesty, what should be noted is that all of this cost in lives, treasure, and effort should have been prevented, and could have been prevented.

What Lord North and the majority should have done is sent a group of ministers over to listen to them, and to observe what the colonists were saying. It might not have been perfect in our eyes, but all of this started because both sides were too hard headed to come to the peace table years ago. And what did this war win us? We’ve lost Gibraltar, battles in the Caribbean, and our bases in the southern part of the colonies. And who knows what we might have to trade to get them back? All of the gains by William Pitt’s government and strategy in the previous war might be going away, or at the very least diminished.

The peace talks that would eventually culminate in the Treaty of Vienna would have a profound impact on all of the nations, and would open up new avenues that would lead to later conflicts.

Author’s Notes: And we are back. We have an additional source in The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara Tuchman. I personally recommend the book, as it discusses the fall of Troy, how the mistakes of 6 popes contributed to the rise of Lutheranism, the British government losing America, and America’s handling of the Vietnam War. So the Treaty of Vienna is going to be the analogue to OTL’s Treaty of Paris, but won’t be an exact copy. Thanks again for reading, and feel free to share your comments and questions.
 
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I really like the alternate world that is developing here. I feels really plausible, and it leaves me always excited to see a new update for this TL! Keep up the great work!

(Also, I’m curious what the author of that book you mentioned in the notes has to say on the Fall of Troy. I’m no antiquities expert, but I seems difficult to me to be able piece together specific historical lessons about the follies of great leaders from questionable archeological remains and hyperbolic Homeric epics.)
 
Just found out about this TL! Loving it! Some notes and ideas...

1. Maybe the Colonials/France manage to get all of Quebec south of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick as part of their war reparations? TBH I'm not too much a fan of how that part of the NA map looks in our TL. (And considering De Grasse has basically annihilated the RN I think they more than have enough bargaining chips/clout in the table.)

2. So Napoleon got to go to America! Assuming France goes revolutionary, him still becoming Emperor and getting exiled, why do I see him somehow getting off to the States?

3. Speaking of which, I'd like to see Nelson meeting with Nappy in Boston. Maybe he's one of the captured Brits?

4. I expect a pair of certain people named Metternich and Talleyrand in Vienna trying to come up with a decent deal... (and that gives me a dark and silly idea)
 
Just found out about this TL! Loving it! Some notes and ideas...

1. Maybe the Colonials/France manage to get all of Quebec south of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick as part of their war reparations? TBH I'm not too much a fan of how that part of the NA map looks in our TL. (And considering De Grasse has basically annihilated the RN I think they more than have enough bargaining chips/clout in the table.)

2. So Napoleon got to go to America! Assuming France goes revolutionary, him still becoming Emperor and getting exiled, why do I see him somehow getting off to the States?

3. Speaking of which, I'd like to see Nelson meeting with Nappy in Boston. Maybe he's one of the captured Brits?

4. I expect a pair of certain people named Metternich and Talleyrand in Vienna trying to come up with a decent deal... (and that gives me a dark and silly idea)
Welcome aboard, and glad to hear that you are enjoying this. I'll respond to each of your notes and ideas one by one. Though I'm not going to tip my hand as to keep the surprise factor.

1. Canada honestly was one of the trickiest parts when drafting the next chapter. Britain is going to need to play their hand carefully at the peace table to get a good deal, though France and Spain are going to want to at least get out of the war with something to justify the treasure spent helping the Americans.

2. Napoleon is going to play a big role in upcoming chapters, and I have plans for him. Especially as those plans are something that I don't think I've ever seen on this board. Picking Dumouriez to command the French army at Boston is for good reason. I personally consider him to have bought enough time for the French Revolution at Valmy, so him winning a crucial battle wouldn't be too crazy.

3. Nelson didn't get captured or killed, and he's going to certainly play a part in upcoming battles.

4. Metternich won't be at the peace talks, as he is still too young and I don't think his father would have a reason to observe these peace talks. Talleyrand is going to have some involvement.
 
I really like the alternate world that is developing here. I feels really plausible, and it leaves me always excited to see a new update for this TL! Keep up the great work!

(Also, I’m curious what the author of that book you mentioned in the notes has to say on the Fall of Troy. I’m no antiquities expert, but I seems difficult to me to be able piece together specific historical lessons about the follies of great leaders from questionable archeological remains and hyperbolic Homeric epics.)
Glad to hear that you find this to not be nearing ASB.

So I actually owned The March of Folly: From Troy To Vietnam before I read The Guns of August. So what she says is that it's important to take a look at the Trojan Horse without looking at the mythological/religious angle. That men are prone to making mistakes of their own free will, and certainly the Trojans could have kept the horse outside of the walls, but chose not to for whatever reason. Or at least that's my reading of the chapter.

One of the reasons I share which resources I use besides obviously following board rules about plagiarism on this TL is so that anyone can find resources to use if they are interested in the time period, or even use in their own timelines. And if nothing else, my only goal for this timeline is to hopefully make it worth the click and time spent reading it.
 
Hopefully, he get to use his famous signal at TTL's Battle of the Nile: "England knows Lady Hamilton is a virgin. Poke my eye out and cut off my arm if I'm wrong."
Perhaps he should marry Lady Hamilton in this TL. Avoid all the scandal in Nelson's later years (and I checked - she didn't marry until 1791, Nelson was unmarried until '87).

Also another idea - have Napoleon meet Wellington mano y mano at one point, other than off the battle.
 
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Chapter 14: The Treaty of Vienna
Chapter 14: The Treaty of Vienna

In early 1782, the peace commissioners for the warring power got down to business and began negotiations. The British were going to try and hold on to as many possessions as they could, but knew that the Allies would try and get a pound of flesh to make the amount of money that they had funneled to the Americans and spent on their military expenditures. One of the potential ways that the British could drive a wedge between the Allies was to convince the Americans that they could get a better deal in a separate peace, with the possibility of a trade deal and other enticements.

The Americans had one major aim. Independence with a boundary into the Ohio Country so that they could continue to grow and have enough land to work with. But there was a problem. Both France and Spain were looking to get the Ohio Country, as a compliment to their colonial ambitions and to establish a stronger claim in the Americas. And there was a fourth group that had claims of their own over the Ohio Country, and one who was prepared to fight over their claims to the land. But that was a story for another time.

The two most complicated parts of the treaty were who was going to control Gibraltar and who would get what parts of the mainland. The Spanish were adamant that they wouldn’t be interested in returning Gibraltar, no matter what the British offered in a trade. The British wanted to keep their gateway to the Mediterranean. Discussions bogged down for weeks, even with the Austrians playing a sort of “shuttle diplomacy” in the various houses around Vienna where the delegations were staying.

The French wanted to get back into North America and reacquire either Louisiana or Quebec, in addition to another island or two to increase the sugar yields in the Triangle Trade. King Louis XVI had nearly gone broke supporting the Americans, and getting something in return that could generate cash would be able to get him the goodwill needed to stave off the rising calls for reform.

On July 31, 1782, the Treaty of Vienna was signed, and sent to the various countries to end the Revolutionary War. The 13 colonies were declared independent, and received the Ohio Country as their western frontier. Britain ceded Gibraltar to Spain, Quebec and Newfoundland would go to France, and Florida would go to Spain after some horse trading. All debts would be settled upon an agreed upon payment schedule, and France would receive some indemnities in order to start paying off some of their debts early.

But there was one group of observers who were disgusted with the way that the Europeans and Americans had dismissed their claims to the land. Back at the start of the French and Indian war, the Ohio Country was up for grabs. Tanacharison, an Indian leader who was the representative of the Six Nations. Also called the Half King by the British, he had to negotiate between the British and the French and balance holding onto his land. In a television documentary about the French and Indian war, Tanacharison quipped “If the British claim one side of the river, and the French claim the other side, might I ask where does the Indian land lie? We live in a country between, which belongs to neither.” Tanacharison was dead by 1782, but his quote encapsulated the questions that the various tribes had to answer as best they could with whatever leverage they had.

While the historical accuracy of that quote is uncertain, a new generation of Indian leaders were faced with the return of the French, and the increasing incursions of the Americans. To make sure that their interests were represented, one of the leaders of an Indian tribe was sent to Europe to attempt to make sure that the various tribes of the Ohio Country would get to keep their land. But each delegation refused to even meet with them. It was a decision that they would come to regret in the coming years. For the leader would talk to two of his younger family members. As legend says, the conversation said “The whites will try and trick you. I fear that we are going to be in for the battle of our lives in the future. You will have to defend our lands with whatever means are necessary.”

Author’s Notes: And we are back. So this treaty isn’t as generous to the Americans as OTL, but still gives them something to work with. The quote I included about a country between comes from the excellent PBS documentary The War That Made America, which was about the French and Indian War. And those last two paragraphs are foreshadowing a much bloodier frontier, with two Indian leaders getting some attention. Sorry about no map, as I’ve never done that before. If someone wants to make a map, feel free to reach out. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share your thoughts.
 
I'm glad you watched The War That Made America. I found it quite enlightening.

Now, on to the map painting: why am I expecting Quebec to either A) be sold off to the States or B) become an independent nation assuming the French debt situation isn't any bettered?

Also I fear for Acadia, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. If they're cut off from Ontario they'll be in quite the pickle if another war breaks out in North America...
 
I'm glad you watched The War That Made America. I found it quite enlightening.

Now, on to the map painting: why am I expecting Quebec to either A) be sold off to the States or B) become an independent nation assuming the French debt situation isn't any bettered?

Also I fear for Acadia, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. If they're cut off from Ontario they'll be in quite the pickle if another war breaks out in North America...
The companion book is just as good as the documentary, and does a good job with what is a forgotten war in the United States, even though it changed everything.

Quebec is going to be interesting to see develop, as will Newfoundland. France went for those two in particular to get a good chunk of the fur trade and the fishing trade. Needless to say, you are so right about a potential war being interesting from Canada. I didn't want to have the US take Canada as I feel like it would be too ASB given the POD.
 
Maybe. If France needs the money or if anarchy/ revolution or war with US for any reason It might be possible. More interesting is where do the loyalist who settled in Canada go?
 
Maybe. If France needs the money or if anarchy/ revolution or war with US for any reason It might be possible. More interesting is where do the loyalist who settled in Canada go?
Where the Loyalists go will be the subject of an upcoming chapter.
 
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