What is the situation in Dakar? Did they receive any post war aid from the Communards?
Spectre of Europe - An Alternative Paris Commune Timeline
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The Senussi are in revolt? It will suck being them...i expect that the reaction will be more or less as OTL 'riconquista della Libia' and they will be even in a worse position of OTL as Italy is not only in a much better shape but it also had more decades to extent control of the place (the idea to transform the place in a settler colony originated by the liberal and the fascist 'merely' embrace it)
Finally!!!! A tl that butterflies away tintins racism, pure wish fulfilment I love it.
Thank you - I'm glad you are enjoying it.
I don't know that much about South-East Asia, I must admit, so that is very interesting to hear about. To be honest I need to spend more time on the region (I have a plan, but not something too solid yet) as the lack of French Colonialism in Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam etc will have had huge butterflies.
Henri VI is still nominally on the throne but, since the Gospel Landings, he's been in a Communard Prison. Expect more on that.
Yes, again, expect more on that in updates to come. I have a feeling we're going to be in Africa for quite a while now.
I agree. I'm interested in seeing how the contrast of owning Tunisia will affect Italian colonial thinking though. Little chance I think, given the Arab population basis of Tunisia being much higher, of Rome trying to make that a settler colony like Libya. Crushing the Senussi isn't a problem for Italy, really; the bigger issue is how much they can afford to sink into propping up the Kingdom of France in West Africa...
I love Tintin to mega-fan proportions. Plus, I'd argue that apart from Tintin in the Congo the other texts aren't particularly racist. Especially not when put against the standards of the time. He worked with Chinese and South American students in Brussels to portray their countries more accurately IIRC.
Neither officially or intentionally, but already in OTL before the France take over there were a very sizeble italian presence there and even after WWI there were more italians than french in that corner of Africa. While Tunisia will remain a protectorate and not a direct colony, the mix of being a good place to settle and not much distant from the coast of Italy, the already big italian presence, the fact that possess some good place for farmer and fishers mean that naturally people will go there.
Well probably enough to stop the rebellion, at least this time, Italy is much richer and the fear that the rebellion will spread on her prize possession will be very real; plus it's probable that London will give some material and logistical support as a mean to stop communard meddling and because Italy is the best possible continental ally for the moment.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Four - Morocco
'If the Colonial Project stutters it will be as a result of Spanish Folly'
British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare, 1929.
'It is war on the one hand and civil disobedience on the other. I will treat both with the forceful response they deserve'
Jose Sanjurjo, High Commissioner of Morocco, 1932.
Spanish control of Morocco had always been shaky. A series of conquests, stage by stage, in the 1900s and 1910s had led to the establishment of a protectorate across the entire country. Madrid, in edging out French interests from Algiers, had come to rely on the support of their client Sultan in Rabat, "supported" by an appointed High Commissioner. Nominally a protectorate, Morocco was colonial territory in all but name.
Rabat, 1920s.
It was the jewel in Spain's colonial crown, especially after the loss of the Philippines and Cuba in 1898. Millions of Spanish Pesos were invested in the region, railways and roads criss-crossed its territory, and thousands upon thousands of missionaries, traders, soldiers, and administrators occupied its land. Throughout the 1920s the region, apart from some trouble with the unruly Berber tribes in the Atlas Mountains, had been relatively quiet, partly because of the benign influence of Sultan Yusef. A man more than happy to acquiesce to the colonial regime that had displaced his brother, Yusef displayed little resistance to the growing influence of Spain in the area. His death, though, in 1928 and the coming of the conflict in French West Africa changed matters.
His son Mohammed, western educated and unsettled by the "backwards" condition he felt his country was in, was cut from a different cloth from his father. Still, his efforts at reform might have come to nothing if not for the regional turmoil. By 1930, inspired by the Tuareg, the Rif tribes were once more in rebellion. The High Commissioner, Jose Sanjurjo, was less concerned than perhaps he should have been. The column of almost 21,000 soldiers he sent off into the mountains to pacify the tribes should, really, have been more than sufficient. Yet in the harsh climate, where water and ammunition was difficult to source, and against an enemy that drew them steadily in, the column became more and more disorganised. Finally, near Annual on the northern coast, a counter-attack by the tribes overwhelmed the Spanish. Faced with a determined enemy that knew the ground well, the mixture of Foreign Legionnaires and Moroccan Regulares conscripts, were massacred. For perhaps a thousand Rif casualties, nearly 16,000 Spanish soldiers were killed along with their Commander and many senior officers.
The defeat sent ripples throughout the region. In Libya, despite their own pacification efforts being more successful, the Italians reported an emboldened Sanussi foe. In French territory it was more drastic - the realisation that no Spanish forces would be coming to support them nor many Italians either given the situation in Libya, saw the Kingdom of France reel back from the onslaught. By the end of 1931 most of modern Mali was in the hands of the Communard regime in Dakar and the Tuareg were running rampant.
Worse was to come, though, in Morocco. The stunning defeat of the colonial regime in the mountains, despite the almost immediate arrival of reinforcements from Madrid, stoked the fires of Moroccan nationalism. Public demonstrations, rallies, and even riots over army requisitioning of supplies, became common. Sanjurjo, ensuring Madrid he could hold on, resorted to more and more brutal suppression. The penalty for rioting was upped to the death sentence and a curfew invoked. Spanish troops patrolled the streets at night, bayonets fixed, and a number of mosques were closed after radical imams called for revolution. In the mountains the war was still more fierce. The Spanish paid bounties to their Regulares and European soldiers based on the collecting of Rif scalps. In response the tribes took to crucifying Spaniards they caught. 'Every officer carries a pistol ready to take his own life if needed' wrote one young officer to his parents in Salamanca.
With a repressive colonial regime relying more and more on violence and a population in upheaval, though, it was only a matter of time until tensions boiled over. In Rabat in December 1931 a serious bread riot was disrupted by soldiers from the garrison. Chased by cavalry, protesters fled to the Royal compound where Moroccans from the Royal Bodyguard refused to allow the Spanish to enter. Enraged, Sanjurjo ordered the Foreign Legion and its commander, Colonel Francisco Franco, to storm the compound the following dawn and arrest the protesters and the King. It was too much for many, who saw Mohammed as not just a political but a spiritual leader.
It is unclear whether servants in the garrison or defecting Regulares betrayed the colonial regime, but the night of 17th December was bloody. Perhaps seventy per cent of the Regulares went over to the rebels, turning their blades on their former masters. A number of churches burned, priests not safe from the jacquerie of violence, and armed crowds roamed the streets. Franco was caught hiding in a wardrobe and, in cruel parody of his rewards for scalps, was beheaded and mounted on a pike to be paraded around town, his mouth stuffed with banknotes. Sanjurjo died in his car, almost having escaped the city, in a hail of bullets at the East Gate. Whether it had ever been Mohammed's intention or not, he was now playing a leading role in the greatest uprising in the history of colonialism since the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
In Madrid and Algiers, and even in Rome, panic was starting to set in. Frantic appeals were made first to Rome, which demurred given its more pressing need to secure its own holdings, and then to London. North and West Africa were in flames, a fire that seemed destined to bring down Europe's Imperial house in the whole of Africa.
'If the Colonial Project stutters it will be as a result of Spanish Folly'
British Foreign Secretary Samuel Hoare, 1929.
'It is war on the one hand and civil disobedience on the other. I will treat both with the forceful response they deserve'
Jose Sanjurjo, High Commissioner of Morocco, 1932.
Spanish control of Morocco had always been shaky. A series of conquests, stage by stage, in the 1900s and 1910s had led to the establishment of a protectorate across the entire country. Madrid, in edging out French interests from Algiers, had come to rely on the support of their client Sultan in Rabat, "supported" by an appointed High Commissioner. Nominally a protectorate, Morocco was colonial territory in all but name.
Rabat, 1920s.
It was the jewel in Spain's colonial crown, especially after the loss of the Philippines and Cuba in 1898. Millions of Spanish Pesos were invested in the region, railways and roads criss-crossed its territory, and thousands upon thousands of missionaries, traders, soldiers, and administrators occupied its land. Throughout the 1920s the region, apart from some trouble with the unruly Berber tribes in the Atlas Mountains, had been relatively quiet, partly because of the benign influence of Sultan Yusef. A man more than happy to acquiesce to the colonial regime that had displaced his brother, Yusef displayed little resistance to the growing influence of Spain in the area. His death, though, in 1928 and the coming of the conflict in French West Africa changed matters.
His son Mohammed, western educated and unsettled by the "backwards" condition he felt his country was in, was cut from a different cloth from his father. Still, his efforts at reform might have come to nothing if not for the regional turmoil. By 1930, inspired by the Tuareg, the Rif tribes were once more in rebellion. The High Commissioner, Jose Sanjurjo, was less concerned than perhaps he should have been. The column of almost 21,000 soldiers he sent off into the mountains to pacify the tribes should, really, have been more than sufficient. Yet in the harsh climate, where water and ammunition was difficult to source, and against an enemy that drew them steadily in, the column became more and more disorganised. Finally, near Annual on the northern coast, a counter-attack by the tribes overwhelmed the Spanish. Faced with a determined enemy that knew the ground well, the mixture of Foreign Legionnaires and Moroccan Regulares conscripts, were massacred. For perhaps a thousand Rif casualties, nearly 16,000 Spanish soldiers were killed along with their Commander and many senior officers.
The defeat sent ripples throughout the region. In Libya, despite their own pacification efforts being more successful, the Italians reported an emboldened Sanussi foe. In French territory it was more drastic - the realisation that no Spanish forces would be coming to support them nor many Italians either given the situation in Libya, saw the Kingdom of France reel back from the onslaught. By the end of 1931 most of modern Mali was in the hands of the Communard regime in Dakar and the Tuareg were running rampant.
Worse was to come, though, in Morocco. The stunning defeat of the colonial regime in the mountains, despite the almost immediate arrival of reinforcements from Madrid, stoked the fires of Moroccan nationalism. Public demonstrations, rallies, and even riots over army requisitioning of supplies, became common. Sanjurjo, ensuring Madrid he could hold on, resorted to more and more brutal suppression. The penalty for rioting was upped to the death sentence and a curfew invoked. Spanish troops patrolled the streets at night, bayonets fixed, and a number of mosques were closed after radical imams called for revolution. In the mountains the war was still more fierce. The Spanish paid bounties to their Regulares and European soldiers based on the collecting of Rif scalps. In response the tribes took to crucifying Spaniards they caught. 'Every officer carries a pistol ready to take his own life if needed' wrote one young officer to his parents in Salamanca.
With a repressive colonial regime relying more and more on violence and a population in upheaval, though, it was only a matter of time until tensions boiled over. In Rabat in December 1931 a serious bread riot was disrupted by soldiers from the garrison. Chased by cavalry, protesters fled to the Royal compound where Moroccans from the Royal Bodyguard refused to allow the Spanish to enter. Enraged, Sanjurjo ordered the Foreign Legion and its commander, Colonel Francisco Franco, to storm the compound the following dawn and arrest the protesters and the King. It was too much for many, who saw Mohammed as not just a political but a spiritual leader.
It is unclear whether servants in the garrison or defecting Regulares betrayed the colonial regime, but the night of 17th December was bloody. Perhaps seventy per cent of the Regulares went over to the rebels, turning their blades on their former masters. A number of churches burned, priests not safe from the jacquerie of violence, and armed crowds roamed the streets. Franco was caught hiding in a wardrobe and, in cruel parody of his rewards for scalps, was beheaded and mounted on a pike to be paraded around town, his mouth stuffed with banknotes. Sanjurjo died in his car, almost having escaped the city, in a hail of bullets at the East Gate. Whether it had ever been Mohammed's intention or not, he was now playing a leading role in the greatest uprising in the history of colonialism since the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
In Madrid and Algiers, and even in Rome, panic was starting to set in. Frantic appeals were made first to Rome, which demurred given its more pressing need to secure its own holdings, and then to London. North and West Africa were in flames, a fire that seemed destined to bring down Europe's Imperial house in the whole of Africa.
This is getting brutal. I hope that the Euros don't win, I'd rather this mess not be for nothing.
Well, i honestly doubt that Rome will not intervene there, expecially if things in Libya are troubling; nobody will want the revolt spreading in Tunisia and Libya and here Italy is the big man of the mediterrean (taking the place of OTL France) and much richer than OTL and so with more capacity and even OTL if was .
The senussi can and will revolt, but ITTL Italy started to control the place 30 years earlier and i doubt that getting supply for the rebels will be an easy task due to Regia Marina control of the mediterrean and the political fallout that will erupt if the communard are found supply weapons to the rebels and in any case... unfortunely the revolt will be put down in a very brutal way, probably enough that for a generation or two the locals will have fear to even look funny to the italian authority (more or less like OTL)
The senussi can and will revolt, but ITTL Italy started to control the place 30 years earlier and i doubt that getting supply for the rebels will be an easy task due to Regia Marina control of the mediterrean and the political fallout that will erupt if the communard are found supply weapons to the rebels and in any case... unfortunely the revolt will be put down in a very brutal way, probably enough that for a generation or two the locals will have fear to even look funny to the italian authority (more or less like OTL)
If the Communards really wanted to, they could move arms down through the Atlantic to West Africa, then shift them overland, avoiding the Med entirely. Of course, how easy/cheap this is is another matter.
Yes but it will be pretty time consuming and costly, plus it will be very difficult to conceal...and taking a lesson from OTL Spanish civil war, well 'accident' happen (expecially when italian submarines sunk isolated soviet merchant ships)
And so the western Maghreb is set aflame.
Parodying 1857, it would be amusing to see Sultan Mohammad being crowned as the next ruler of the eastern Sahara, or even as caliph. Not sure how Communard Europe would see that, though.
Parodying 1857, it would be amusing to see Sultan Mohammad being crowned as the next ruler of the eastern Sahara, or even as caliph. Not sure how Communard Europe would see that, though.
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Five: The Lion Stirs
Heart of oak are our ships,
Hearts of oak are our men,
We always are ready, steady boys, steady,
To charge and to conquer again and again.
Chorus to Heart of Oak (1809 Version), the official march of the British Royal Navy.
HMS Royal Oak fires on the Moroccan coastline around Sali in support of a Spanish offensive
The British Fleet that, in the first week of January 1932, steamed down the North African coastline brought the Moroccan Revolt to its knees. Ordered by the Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Birkenhead, it shelled Kentira and Rabat before putting in at El Jadida and landing four Naval Battalions. It they steamed on, supporting resurgent Spanish garrisons along the coast, heading inexorably towards Dakar. Only the presence of the Blanqui (the renamed Potemkin, now almost thirty years old) and a couple of armored Merchant ships flying Communard flags in Dakar Harbor made the British think twice. After a day of aggressive posturing, in which the London and Paris exchanged frantic and angry diplomatic cables, the fleet retired back to Rabat where the Moroccan Sultan had agreed to come to the table. A power-sharing "custodianship" over Morocco was agreed, with Britain and Spain keeping key garrisons and "interests" in the country which had always been nominally independent. In coming weeks the Royalist French, in no position to argue, came to an agreement with the Tuareg, granting them an autonomy they had always theoretically had in exchange for peace. The revolts were stifled, the Dakar Commune stopped in its tracks having only really occupied small areas of French Sudan and Niger.
It was not the first time that Birkenhead's Government, which had taken over from Reform in 1923, had intervened. The 1926 Naval force that landed Tsarina Olga, General Kornilov, and White Russian supporters in St. Petersburg after Kyril's assassination, reigniting the second phase of the Civil War, had been a deliberate attempt to stymie Communard growth in the East. In the Far East the repeated renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance continued to serve as a counter-balance to Republican China, although London's bankers and merchants were also working with the Government to open up mainland China for investment. Their aim was to strengthen the forces of commerce and stability in the country and thus reinforce the moderate and conservative factions that vied in the Republic's confused and eclectic political system. There were even rumors that London had granted asylum to Renaud Carrette and his remaining followers in the aftermath of their failed rebellion.
In France the tensions grew. Britain was increasingly seen as the main foe of international socialism, a rich conservative power intent on undermining the cause of unity and peace in Europe. The Montagnard leaders increasingly discussed the need for a Fifth International, given the boiling tensions between London and Paris. 'Morocco simply indicates how desperate the Imperial Powers are to keep the oppressed of the world under their thumb' wrote Jorda to Martel, whilst the later, in an interview with Cri du Peuple claimed darkly that it was 'Time for the Communard Parties of Europe to seize the initiative and enter into a phase of armed struggle' he told the interviewer, particularly invoking parties and affiliates in Spain, Italy, and even the United Kingdom itself. Strong talk, of course, but at that moment in time not yet strong action.
Whilst another foreign policy success for Birkenhead, though, the Moroccan Intervention proved the old adage that politics pivot on national, not international, issues. Almost a decade of Tory rule had, despite promises in the 1920s, failed to deliver on a number of key social reforms that were becoming more and more apparent in their absence.
The Conservative Sun-Ray Treatment had, by 1932, not really been achieved.
In scuppering Reform's chances to deal with the House of Lords properly, overturning Rowntree's government with a vote of no-confidence, the Tories had failed to resolve a burning constitutional crisis in British Politics - how much power, particularly in terms of veto, should the unelected upper House wield? The looming spectre of an arms race with France, and the needs of updating a military which had sat out of the last war, meant that many Conservative MPs were split between the belief in reform and the need to balance the books. Moreover, Birkenhead's reliance on Ulster Tories, particularly Basil Brooke, alienated many Catholic and Irish voters across the UK. Yet Reform was likewise in the doldrums - after the resignation of Rowntree as leader and their failures in 1926 and 1930 elections to overturn the Conservatives the Party was struggling, torn between more moderate factions and a Trade Union movement frustrated by the inability of the Party to protect their rights. The Liberal situation, in one sentence, could be summed up by the infamous Manchester Guardian editorial of that year "What IS the Liberal Party actually for?". Few in the country knew.
What all sides did know, though, was that winds of change were blowing, and the influence of the hotly contested US election of that year certainly helped in the radical reshaping of British politics that was to come.
Heart of oak are our ships,
Hearts of oak are our men,
We always are ready, steady boys, steady,
To charge and to conquer again and again.
Chorus to Heart of Oak (1809 Version), the official march of the British Royal Navy.
HMS Royal Oak fires on the Moroccan coastline around Sali in support of a Spanish offensive
It was not the first time that Birkenhead's Government, which had taken over from Reform in 1923, had intervened. The 1926 Naval force that landed Tsarina Olga, General Kornilov, and White Russian supporters in St. Petersburg after Kyril's assassination, reigniting the second phase of the Civil War, had been a deliberate attempt to stymie Communard growth in the East. In the Far East the repeated renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance continued to serve as a counter-balance to Republican China, although London's bankers and merchants were also working with the Government to open up mainland China for investment. Their aim was to strengthen the forces of commerce and stability in the country and thus reinforce the moderate and conservative factions that vied in the Republic's confused and eclectic political system. There were even rumors that London had granted asylum to Renaud Carrette and his remaining followers in the aftermath of their failed rebellion.
In France the tensions grew. Britain was increasingly seen as the main foe of international socialism, a rich conservative power intent on undermining the cause of unity and peace in Europe. The Montagnard leaders increasingly discussed the need for a Fifth International, given the boiling tensions between London and Paris. 'Morocco simply indicates how desperate the Imperial Powers are to keep the oppressed of the world under their thumb' wrote Jorda to Martel, whilst the later, in an interview with Cri du Peuple claimed darkly that it was 'Time for the Communard Parties of Europe to seize the initiative and enter into a phase of armed struggle' he told the interviewer, particularly invoking parties and affiliates in Spain, Italy, and even the United Kingdom itself. Strong talk, of course, but at that moment in time not yet strong action.
Whilst another foreign policy success for Birkenhead, though, the Moroccan Intervention proved the old adage that politics pivot on national, not international, issues. Almost a decade of Tory rule had, despite promises in the 1920s, failed to deliver on a number of key social reforms that were becoming more and more apparent in their absence.
The Conservative Sun-Ray Treatment had, by 1932, not really been achieved.
What all sides did know, though, was that winds of change were blowing, and the influence of the hotly contested US election of that year certainly helped in the radical reshaping of British politics that was to come.
Thank you very much. I'm glad people still find and enjoy this timeline.
Just a few areas you'd like updates on then! I'll try my best...
A revolutionary French government creating vassals in Iberia causing the Spanish and British monarchies to put their Gibraltar dispute aside and team up against the French?
Could this.. Could this be PENINSULAR WAR 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO?
Could this.. Could this be PENINSULAR WAR 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO?
Chapter One Hundred and Fifty Six - Auspicious Beginnings
'There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land.'
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
'You know the biggest problem you've got? Your parties full of goddamn kikes'. This brash statement, attributed to a Trade Union leader that went unnamed in Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's autobiography, summed up the quandaries faced by those socialists in America who met in 1931 with the objective of pushing Chairman Joseph P Cannon from the party leadership. 'It has become eminently clear to me' wrote Max Schactman, that June, 'that the Party cannot win the election with Cannon in place'. The one problem with replacing Cannon, though, was that at least some of the leading doctrinaires of the socialist movement were deemed unpalatable to a wider electorate that had come through years of Democratic rule where the very concept of being an "American" had become highly politicized and debated. The perception of the Labor Party as stuffed full of blacks, Jews, radical women, and other "fringe figures" as the New York Times euphemised ("faggots" was how the more coarse New York Daily Mirror put it) was one that it struggled to shift despite the wide range of its membership. Cannon, for all his faults, could hardly be labelled un-American. A rough and tumble Kansas man, Cannon had worked his way up the ranks with a burning passion for the cause of the underclass. But his flip-flop leadership, so different from his campaign trail rhetoric, was costing the party dear.
If the Party was committed to replacing Cannon, his former ally Schactman argued, then it needed to be willing to look beyond its own fences. It needed an all-American figurehead - a candidate who might not be even a party member necessarily.
The death of La Follette Snr three years before would cast a long shadow over the Labor Party
The obvious candidate would have been, a few years prior, "Fighting Bob" La Follette. The man had been Governor of Wisconsin for a near ridiculous seven two-year terms, on and off, and was de-facto leader of the more moderate wing of the Labor Party. Yet La Follette had passed away in 1929, at the age of 74, and neither of his sons inspired much fervor in the Party ranks despite their own slowly rising prominence. Senior Progressive Republican George W. Norris was rumored to be keen, although he himself denied it, and had in the past campaigned on a joint Republican-Populist ticket as well as served in Bryan's second cabinet in defiance of his own Party rules. Daniel Hoan, the moderate socialist current Governor of Wisconsin, was a key choice, as was J. Hackley-Brewer, one of the leading members of the Ohio Congressional delegation. There were also rumors that WH Thompson, the veteran mayor of Chicago who had defected to the party to keep his control of the city alive and well, was mulling a bid.
Schactman and Cannon in happier days. The rebels were aware that Cannon retained control
over much of the Party apparatus.
But the problem was that Cannon had much of the party apparatus locked up after years of maneuvering his own men into key positions. The only asset the rebels had was the open-convention, a long-held and cherished tradition of the Labor Party; a cornerstone of its 'direct democracy' credo. Only here, in the chaos of the convention hall, could Cannon be overturned. Those standing did not even have to announce their candidacy until the day of the Convention. Usually Unions and Party officials worked the power-players in the weeks running up to a Convention to ensure a smooth process, but here Schactman and others planned instead for chaos.
It was about this time that a junior congressman from Mississippi began to come to the notice of Schactman, Gurley Flynn, and others. Originally a Democrat, William J. Unterholz was of German-stock, his parents settling in the area in the 1880s. Mississippi's second congressional district was desperately poor, though, and largely disenfranchised black. Discontent was in the air throughout 'Wally's' - a moniker he chose to sound more American - early upbringing. He had challenged the sitting Democrat in 1928, at the age of just 32, and squeaked through on a socialist ticket that surprised many. In the House he'd made enough friends to secure his seat, channeling a little money into farm subsidies for his poor neighbours, but beyond that made little splash. Gurley Flynn thought him non-descript - a man of average build, average height, with deep blue eyes and a mouth turned up at the corners in a little smug smile amid his close-cut beard. Paul Mattick, the German-immigrant Academic who was part of the Rebel Circle as they were known, could not even remember him joining the sessions. 'He was just there at one point' he recalled 'smoking a foul-smelling cheroot and running a hand through his coarse red hair'. Unterholz was convinced that he could win over the convention, and had come to ask for the support of the Circle in ousting Cannon. So unconvinced were they, though, that all he elicited from the group was a promise to lend a hand if conditions should look favourable on the night.
The Convention, held in Pittsburgh in an unseasonably cold June, was an angry affair. The selection of Al Smith as Republican Candidate worried many, especially the New York delegation who had seen the flight of voters from Labor to Republican in the city. Likewise the decision by President Jackson not to seek another term seemed to have lifted the Democrats out of the doldrums of public opinion, the speculation about who would be their new candidate giving them a welcome bump in the polls. From the outset delegates, primed by candidates and their staff, were boistrous and disruptive. For a while it looked as though it would be Cannon's night. But the early defection of the New York delegation, amongst others, to the Hoan Camp and the surge in votes for Thompson [many were convinced the Mayor had used his organized crime connections to ''muscle'' union voters] saw Cannon slip into an embarrassing third.
Then, on the second day, before the new rounds of voting commenced, the Convention was rocked by the tabloid revelation that Hoan's time as Mayor of Milwalkee had left the city bankrupt. It wasn't true - it had been the fault of Hoan's successor Robert La Follette Jr, himself responding to a bank collapse in the city and a hard winter of manufacturing problems - but it shattered Hoan's carefully shaped image as the moderate 'safe pair of hands'. He compounded the issue, flustered on stage, but attacking La Follette by name, his speech drowned out by boos and jeers from those Progressives who still adored the memory of La Follette Senior. Yet Cannon was unable to capitalise, finding the Agricultural Laborers' Union strangely absent from his back-yard of voters. Indeed, whilst his aides frantically scoured the Convention floor for votes, the head of the union was on stage endorsing dark horse candidate Unterholz. Wally's share of the vote soared, suddenly and unexpectedly, helped by a ringing speech he delivered which called on the Party to address 'the everday needs of everday folk everday across this nation of ours' in dulcet southern tones. By this time the Circle had thrown its support, albeit reeling in some shock, behind Unterholz and the race began to tighten.
A mislabeled photograph that actually shows the interested crowds at the 1932 Labor Party Convention
Thompson, despite being over seventy, worked through the night of the second day and into the early hours of the following morning, strong-arming and buying those men and women who could be bought. In the first ballot of the third day he came within six votes of winning, Cannon and Hoan mere memories of candidates. But Wally wasn't done yet, it seemed. Instead of speaking himself on that fateful third day he gave his slot to a figure many delegates did not expect to see. Ruth Bryan, daughter of the late President Bryan, had been a relatively quiet figure in national politics. But now she brought the audience to their feet in a ringing speech which cast Unterholz as a man of passion, of integrity, of honor. Of everything, in short, that Thompson was not and that her father, beloved of many there that day, had been.
Wally Unterholz won the fifteenth and final ballot on the third afternoon of the Convention and, as he watched from the balcony, Jack Reed mused on the unimposing figure silently smirking on the platform. 'I was convinced that, for the first time in years, we had a shot - a real shot' he reported in a letter to his wife. 'But for some reason I am filled with foreboding'.
'There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land.'
Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
'You know the biggest problem you've got? Your parties full of goddamn kikes'. This brash statement, attributed to a Trade Union leader that went unnamed in Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's autobiography, summed up the quandaries faced by those socialists in America who met in 1931 with the objective of pushing Chairman Joseph P Cannon from the party leadership. 'It has become eminently clear to me' wrote Max Schactman, that June, 'that the Party cannot win the election with Cannon in place'. The one problem with replacing Cannon, though, was that at least some of the leading doctrinaires of the socialist movement were deemed unpalatable to a wider electorate that had come through years of Democratic rule where the very concept of being an "American" had become highly politicized and debated. The perception of the Labor Party as stuffed full of blacks, Jews, radical women, and other "fringe figures" as the New York Times euphemised ("faggots" was how the more coarse New York Daily Mirror put it) was one that it struggled to shift despite the wide range of its membership. Cannon, for all his faults, could hardly be labelled un-American. A rough and tumble Kansas man, Cannon had worked his way up the ranks with a burning passion for the cause of the underclass. But his flip-flop leadership, so different from his campaign trail rhetoric, was costing the party dear.
If the Party was committed to replacing Cannon, his former ally Schactman argued, then it needed to be willing to look beyond its own fences. It needed an all-American figurehead - a candidate who might not be even a party member necessarily.
The death of La Follette Snr three years before would cast a long shadow over the Labor Party
The obvious candidate would have been, a few years prior, "Fighting Bob" La Follette. The man had been Governor of Wisconsin for a near ridiculous seven two-year terms, on and off, and was de-facto leader of the more moderate wing of the Labor Party. Yet La Follette had passed away in 1929, at the age of 74, and neither of his sons inspired much fervor in the Party ranks despite their own slowly rising prominence. Senior Progressive Republican George W. Norris was rumored to be keen, although he himself denied it, and had in the past campaigned on a joint Republican-Populist ticket as well as served in Bryan's second cabinet in defiance of his own Party rules. Daniel Hoan, the moderate socialist current Governor of Wisconsin, was a key choice, as was J. Hackley-Brewer, one of the leading members of the Ohio Congressional delegation. There were also rumors that WH Thompson, the veteran mayor of Chicago who had defected to the party to keep his control of the city alive and well, was mulling a bid.
Schactman and Cannon in happier days. The rebels were aware that Cannon retained control
over much of the Party apparatus.
But the problem was that Cannon had much of the party apparatus locked up after years of maneuvering his own men into key positions. The only asset the rebels had was the open-convention, a long-held and cherished tradition of the Labor Party; a cornerstone of its 'direct democracy' credo. Only here, in the chaos of the convention hall, could Cannon be overturned. Those standing did not even have to announce their candidacy until the day of the Convention. Usually Unions and Party officials worked the power-players in the weeks running up to a Convention to ensure a smooth process, but here Schactman and others planned instead for chaos.
It was about this time that a junior congressman from Mississippi began to come to the notice of Schactman, Gurley Flynn, and others. Originally a Democrat, William J. Unterholz was of German-stock, his parents settling in the area in the 1880s. Mississippi's second congressional district was desperately poor, though, and largely disenfranchised black. Discontent was in the air throughout 'Wally's' - a moniker he chose to sound more American - early upbringing. He had challenged the sitting Democrat in 1928, at the age of just 32, and squeaked through on a socialist ticket that surprised many. In the House he'd made enough friends to secure his seat, channeling a little money into farm subsidies for his poor neighbours, but beyond that made little splash. Gurley Flynn thought him non-descript - a man of average build, average height, with deep blue eyes and a mouth turned up at the corners in a little smug smile amid his close-cut beard. Paul Mattick, the German-immigrant Academic who was part of the Rebel Circle as they were known, could not even remember him joining the sessions. 'He was just there at one point' he recalled 'smoking a foul-smelling cheroot and running a hand through his coarse red hair'. Unterholz was convinced that he could win over the convention, and had come to ask for the support of the Circle in ousting Cannon. So unconvinced were they, though, that all he elicited from the group was a promise to lend a hand if conditions should look favourable on the night.
The Convention, held in Pittsburgh in an unseasonably cold June, was an angry affair. The selection of Al Smith as Republican Candidate worried many, especially the New York delegation who had seen the flight of voters from Labor to Republican in the city. Likewise the decision by President Jackson not to seek another term seemed to have lifted the Democrats out of the doldrums of public opinion, the speculation about who would be their new candidate giving them a welcome bump in the polls. From the outset delegates, primed by candidates and their staff, were boistrous and disruptive. For a while it looked as though it would be Cannon's night. But the early defection of the New York delegation, amongst others, to the Hoan Camp and the surge in votes for Thompson [many were convinced the Mayor had used his organized crime connections to ''muscle'' union voters] saw Cannon slip into an embarrassing third.
Then, on the second day, before the new rounds of voting commenced, the Convention was rocked by the tabloid revelation that Hoan's time as Mayor of Milwalkee had left the city bankrupt. It wasn't true - it had been the fault of Hoan's successor Robert La Follette Jr, himself responding to a bank collapse in the city and a hard winter of manufacturing problems - but it shattered Hoan's carefully shaped image as the moderate 'safe pair of hands'. He compounded the issue, flustered on stage, but attacking La Follette by name, his speech drowned out by boos and jeers from those Progressives who still adored the memory of La Follette Senior. Yet Cannon was unable to capitalise, finding the Agricultural Laborers' Union strangely absent from his back-yard of voters. Indeed, whilst his aides frantically scoured the Convention floor for votes, the head of the union was on stage endorsing dark horse candidate Unterholz. Wally's share of the vote soared, suddenly and unexpectedly, helped by a ringing speech he delivered which called on the Party to address 'the everday needs of everday folk everday across this nation of ours' in dulcet southern tones. By this time the Circle had thrown its support, albeit reeling in some shock, behind Unterholz and the race began to tighten.
A mislabeled photograph that actually shows the interested crowds at the 1932 Labor Party Convention
Thompson, despite being over seventy, worked through the night of the second day and into the early hours of the following morning, strong-arming and buying those men and women who could be bought. In the first ballot of the third day he came within six votes of winning, Cannon and Hoan mere memories of candidates. But Wally wasn't done yet, it seemed. Instead of speaking himself on that fateful third day he gave his slot to a figure many delegates did not expect to see. Ruth Bryan, daughter of the late President Bryan, had been a relatively quiet figure in national politics. But now she brought the audience to their feet in a ringing speech which cast Unterholz as a man of passion, of integrity, of honor. Of everything, in short, that Thompson was not and that her father, beloved of many there that day, had been.
Wally Unterholz won the fifteenth and final ballot on the third afternoon of the Convention and, as he watched from the balcony, Jack Reed mused on the unimposing figure silently smirking on the platform. 'I was convinced that, for the first time in years, we had a shot - a real shot' he reported in a letter to his wife. 'But for some reason I am filled with foreboding'.
So is Wally Unterholz an historical figure or an original character? Because my Googlefu is giving me nothing.
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