Timeline 191 - Canadian Independence and the Alaskan Conflict

Below is a partial episode from the Educational Broadcast Corporation television documentary series titled, A World on Fire, which originally aired in the spring of 1987. The below episode is narrated by Patrick Stewart. The below episode is titled: Canadian Independence and the Alaskan Conflict.

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Following the end of the Second Great War, the US military finds itself faced with the daunting task of having to simultaneously occupy both Canada, and the defeated but still hostile population of the Confederate States of America. By the same token, many US officials are beginning to express doubts about the ability of the US military to effectively occupy all of Canada, Sonora, Chihuahua, Cuba, Baja California, the CSA, and a few scattered islands in the Caribbean.


(A political cartoon depicting a caricature of a bulging eyed snake with the words "US Army" emblazoned upon its side. The outlines of several large animals can be distinctly seen through the snake's grossly distorted midsection as the snake displays a look of painful distress upon its cartoon face.)


By the end of the war, most Canadians have resigned themselves to life under US occupation, and by the start of 1945, resistance to the US military presence in Canada has fallen off to virtually nil.


(Black and white film footage of Canadians passively lining up outside a courthouse in order to renew their residency cards with US occupation officials.)


With the empires of Great Britain and France no longer a going concern, the once defiant Canadian nationalists have gradually come to the realization that no outside help will come to their aid, should they try to rise up against US occupation forces, and most nationalists simply disappear into the woodwork and try to go about their daily lives without being noticed.


(Black and white film footage of a farm woman in Manitoba using a US manufactured tractor to plow a field as officials from the US Department of Agriculture look on.)


None the less, as the occupation drags on, a few Canadians do manage to modestly improve their standards of living.


(Black and white film footage of a large hydroelectric dam under constructed in Lillooet Country, British Columbia.)


(Black and white film footage depicting heavily padded Canadian high school athletes eagerly playing US style gridiron football under the brilliant glare of the nighttime sodium arc lights ringing their field.)


(Black and white film footage of a ribbon cutting ceremony at a US supermarket chain in the city of Toronto. As soon as the ribbon is cut, throngs of wild-eyed shoppers begin grabbing wheeled grocery carts and head off to explore the well-stocked aisles.)


However, huge swaths of the Canadian wilderness remain beyond the direct control of the US military as officials in Washington DC are forced to focus a dwindling number of available occupation troops upon areas immediately adjacent to the US border, and also upon the heavily industrialized occupation zones surrounding the Great Lakes.


(Black and white film footage of a small single-engine US Army spotter plane flying over a snow covered landscape somewhere in the Northern Canadian Rockies. The shadow of the small plane moves rapidly over the rugged terrain without any indication of human habitation appearing in the moving picture frame.)


In February of 1945, a study commissioned by the US Department of War concludes that it will be virtually impossible for the US military to effectively occupy the defeated Confederate State of America, while still maintaining large numbers of occupation troops in Canada. Additionally, continuous Freedom Party uprisings across the eastern portions of the defeated Confederacy begin to take their toll on US public opinion, and officials in Washington DC are sent scrambling in search of a speedy resolution to the problem.

(Black and white film footage of US occupation troops in a shootout with Freedom Party extremists who have taken over the State Capitol Building in Jackson, Mississippi. A ragged Freedom Party flag can be seen waving from a makeshift pole sticking out of a broken window located near the base of the capitol dome. A US heavy barrel cruises into view and trains its massive gun on the capitol building. The heavy barrel can be seen rocking back and forth slightly as it fires its huge 110 mm gun, and within a second the entire front lower section of the dome is completely engulfed in an explosive fireball. The dome then loses its shape and dramatically collapses in wreckage into the capitol building supporting it.)


Even before the end of the war, US officials had already reached the conclusion that the only way to guarantee the future peace and security of the United States of America was to completely and totally defeat the Confederacy, and to never again allow it to exist as an independent nation. Top US military planners repeatedly vow to crush the stubborn Freedom Party resistance movement, but US military planners quickly realize that their campaign will require many more troops before the existential threat presented by Freedom Party extremists can be entirely eliminated.


(Black and white film footage of high ranking US military officials discussing strategy with their civilian counterparts in the Planning Room of the old War Department Building in Philadelphia. The huge room is ornately decorated and seems to cover half an acre in the fish-eye view of the camera lens. There are several heavy tables arranged in rows, and each table has its own flock of bureaucrats intensely hunched over large maps spread across the tabletops. On the far wall is a huge map of the North American Continent.)


Thus in the early spring of 1945 the incoming Dewey administration begins to consider the feasibility of granting the people of Canada some sort of limited sovereignty.



(A black and white still image photo of President Dewey, General Daniel MacArthur, and Secretary of State Prescott Bush sharing a conversation in the Oval Office over coffee. MacArthur's face looks somewhat taut as President Dewey is intently explaining something to him. Bush absently stares into his own cup of coffee.)


After much debate it is determined that the US's best interest shall be served by turning Canada into a close ally, rather than having it remain under the yoke of indefinite US military occupation. US authorities identify a number of key Canadian lawyers, academics, and business leaders who are considered by the United States as being suitable to run an independent Canada. The US State Departments assists its handpicked delegates in orchestrating a constitutional convention in Ottawa, but it takes until January of 1946 until the first drafts for a new Canadian constitution are ready for review by US officials.


Among other things, the constitutional delegates are nearly evenly split on whether Canada should adopt a parliamentary form of government, or if it should become a federal republic modeled after the United States. In the end the Federalists win out over those supporting parliamentarianism, and in March of 1946 the Dewey administration gives its blessing to Canada's new constitution, which is closely based upon that of the US.


(A black and white still image of a smiling Secretary of State Prescott Bush shaking hand with Canadian Constitutional Convention Chairman, Alexander Meighen. Bush and Meighen are standing at the head of long table, and other constitution delegates can be seen sitting at the table behind them, smiling towards the camera.)


On May 1, 1946 the Dewey administration announces to the public that Canada will be granted full independence on September 3rd 1946, and that Canadians will be given the right to determine their own future. However, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, will not be joining the new Federal Republic of Canada, and instead they will become official territories of the United States. Likewise, Newfoundland and Labrador will be annexed by the Republic of Quebec, and will also not be a part of the new Canadian nation.


(Black and white film footage displaying the shifting international boundaries of Canada. In its new form Canada is to be a westward facing nation, with much of its future economic activity centered along its Pacific Coast.)


A few Canadians are upset over their lost provinces to the east, but cooler heads point out that it would be difficult to govern over these remote territories as the establishment of an independent Quebec has already turned them into exclaves, and cut them off from the rest of Canada. In the end, Canadian fears of being cut off from the Atlantic Ocean are placated by a three-way treaty between the US, Quebec, and Canada which grants Canadian ships free right of way passage to the Atlantic via the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.


On July the 15th, just mere weeks before their official independence is set to take effect, Canadians go to the polls and elect Federalist candidate Alexander Meighen as Canada's first president. It is the first time in their history that Canadians have been allowed to select their own national leader. Meighen is sworn into office on Canada's first official day of independence on September 3, 1946.


(Color film footage of US troops lowering the US flag at a ceremony in Ottawa as a small honor guard of Canadian Mounties simultaneously raise the new flag of Canada. US Vice President Harry Truman and US Secretary of State Prescott Bush stand behind Canadian President Alexander Meighen as Meighen watches the flag of his new nation ascending the pole. Meighen is overcome with emotion as a single tear streams down his cheek. A few other Canadian dignitaries standing in the background also have tear stained cheeks.)


US troops can now be withdrawn from Canada in relative safety and sent down to the occupied Confederacy to bolster occupation forces already stationed there. A small number of military advisors will remain behind, however, in order to help train the new Canadian Army, and to provide additional security.


(Black and white film footage of a US Army Drill Sergeant haranguing new Canadian recruits at a training base near Vancouver.)


(Color film footage of tough but weary looking US solider boarding a chartered passenger train as they carry heavy looking knapsacks and rifles across their shoulders. A conductor looks on as battle hardened troops put their boots on the upholstered seats. Others casually smoke and play cards as the train makes its way southward across the US Midwest.)


Meighen takes office with promises to maintain close economic and political ties with his powerful neighbor to the south, and in the coming years the Federal Republic of Canada will benefit immensely from its close association with the United States. Meanwhile, and perhaps not too unpredictably, the value of the Canadian Dollar begins to fluctuate wildly as Canadians become unsure of the value of their new currency.


(Black and white still image of a headline from the Wall Street Journal dated June 2, 1947 titled, "Is The Canadian Dollar Stable?) Below the headline is a downward trending graph outlining the declining value of the Canadian during the past few months.)


President Dewey's economic advisors inform him that the Canadian Dollar is in danger of a free-fall collapse, and that the Canadian economy may experience hyper-inflation similar to what was seen in the Confederate States of America during the 1920s, if drastic steps aren't taken to correct the problem. Dewey takes immediate action by ordering his treasury secretary to buy up excessive Canadian Dollars in order to stabilize the value of the currency. The ploy works, but many US Socialists accuse Dewey of using the government to fix the problems of capitalism.


(Black and white film footage of Flora Hamburger making an impassioned speech in front of the United States House of Representatives.)


However, by the first anniversary of Canadian independence, in September 1947, the Canadian Dollar manages to regain all of its lost value, and to actually rise slightly above its initial value from a year earlier. And accordingly with a stabilized currency, the Canadian economy begins to hum with activity.


(Black and white film footage of refrigerators coming of an assembly line at a GE plant in Ontario. Raw lumber being loaded onto railroad cars for shipment to the US. Fish being cleaned and processed at a highly mechanized cannery plant in British Columbia.)


However, things do not stay quiet for long in Canada, as the October 1947 Russian Revolution begins to spill across the international border with Russian Alaska.

(Color film footage of the Kremlin as the red and blue hammer and sickle banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is raised for the first time. Officers of the Red Army inspect field pieces and other equipment at a military base abandoned by the Czar's fleeing army.)


By the spring of 1948, the fledgling Canadian Army finds itself outmatched by the intrusive Red guerrillas spreading out from Alaska's interior into Northwestern Canada. The steady flow of dedicated Marxist-Trotskyist fighters illegally entering Canada is difficult to stop due to the extremely remote and porous nature of the international boundary with Russian Alaska.


(Color film footage of boxy industrial buildings burning in the background, as Canadian troops in blue-green, and US military advisors in gray-green, fire their bolt-action rifles at unseen enemies hiding in a nearby cluster of snow covered pine trees.)


By the late 1940s Alaska has an extraordinarily large Russian population of approximately 350,000, making Russians by far the single largest ethnic group throughout the territory. This exceptionally large Russian population is mainly due to the oppressive Czars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who had a penchant for exiling malcontents and petty criminals to work camps in their far away North American possession.


(Grainy black and white footage of extremely disheveled looking exiles being forcibly loaded onto an already overcrowded steamer at a dock in Vladivostok.)


(Grainy black and white film footage of forced laborers using hand tools to cut a road through a remote Alaskan forest.)


Many of the surviving leaders of the failed Red uprisings occurring between 1917 and 1926 are sent to harsh labor camps in Alaska, where most are worked to death or die of disease, starvation, or injury. However, a few manage to survive their ordeals in the forced labor camps, and are released after their sentences expire.


(Black and white film footage showing malnourished internees with heavily bandaged hands and arms lying in a makeshift infirmary. Scene depicting a bleak windblown field, with wooden crosses dotting trash strewn snowdrifts.)


Moreover, many of the surviving work-camp internees opt to remain in Alaska and settle in the remote North American wilderness, far away from the watchful eye of the Czar's omnipresent secret police.


(Black and white footage of a Marxist organizer as he enthusiastically hammers his fist into the palm of his hand while explaining the tenets of Marxist ideology to a group of Russian - Alaskan fisherman who are drinking in a small smoke filled pub. Most of the men simply ignore the noisy rabble rouser as they nurse their drinks, but a few seem to be listening very intently.)


By the mid-1920s a tiny network of well-established communistic collectives are in existence across Alaska's southern hinterlands. During the long arctic summer days, these collectives are able to produce a variety of cereal crops which are then traded with other collectives, and or traditional Russian speaking villages for livestock, timber, and other items necessary to live in the hardscrabble landscape. An unofficial cashless economy of sorts takes root amongst the Alaskan collectives, but few people living outside of Alaska are aware of its existence.


(Black and white film footage depicting Russian peasants using pitch forks to load hay onto a horse drawn wagon under the midnight Alaskan sun.)


Prior to the 1947 Revolution, most Russians living in Alaska maintain very little contact with their mother-country, and most seem to relish the relative autonomy associated with living roughly eight thousand miles away from the Czar's palace.


(Black and white film footage of carefree Russian peasant celebrating at an outdoor festival filled with music, dancing, and vodka.)



Beginning in early 1948, Moscow begins sending special political officers to Alaska in order to ensure that the locals are following the correct form of Marxist-Trotskyist ideology. However, most of the Russian Marxists living in Alaska follow Marxist-Leninist ideology, and their views regarding Marxist revolution do not coincide precisely with the views now being held by the regime in Moscow.


(Color film footage of rally participants in Moscow's Red Square carrying a large placard emblazoned with an outline of the boundaries of the RSFR, including the outline of Russian Alaska. Others carry smaller placards bearing the image of Leon Trotsky, while still others carry the red and blue banner of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.)


The leaders of the Alaskan Leninist movement believe that it is up to them, and them alone, to decide when and where Marxist revolutions should occur, and for the moment they are content to live undisturbed in the Red Alaskan paradise they have created for themselves. On the other hand, the hot-blooded Trotskyists from Moscow believe it is the responsibility of each and every individual worker to promote the spread of global Marxist revolution, and they accuse the Leninists of creating a reactionary feudal society in the isolated Alaskan outback.


(Black and white film footage of a group of people vigorously arguing in a small meeting hall. A man standing behind a podium is banging his shoe on the podium, but no one is paying any attention to him.)


(Black and white film footage of a sad-faced former Leninist political commissar who is enduring the process of being denounced by his former comrades. The former commissar's wears a sign around his neck bearing the words "REACTIONARY" and "OPPRESSOR" has patches of his hair are brutally cut from his scalp. A heavy set woman walks up to the bound commissar and slaps him across the cheeks before spitting in his face.)


The firebrand Trotskyists from across the Bearing Straight quickly gain the upper hand, and soon all of the Alaskan collectives are brought into line with Moscow.


(Color film footage of peasants at a collective in Southern Alaska carrying the portrait of Leon Trotsky and the flag of the RSFR as they carry out a gay parade through the center of their village.)


The Trotskyists decide that the best way to carry the revolution to the people of Canada will be by sending teams of volunteers out into the Canadian states of Yukon and British Columbia to disseminate anti-US propaganda amongst the local population. The Trotskyists are aware that the US fought a simmering war with Canadian nationalists, just a few years earlier, and now the Trotskyists naively hope to capitalize upon that conflict by bringing the Canadian nationalists into their fold.


(Black and white film footage depicting a broad faced woman with a large bundle on her back happily making her way on cross-country skis. The woman smiles and waves happily to the camera before heading across a snow covered frozen lake.)


Unfortunately for the Trotskyists, the predominately traditionalists Christian rural Canadians prove unwelcoming to the idea of overthrowing their own newly established government, and the message of Marxist revolution is not well received by the people of Northwestern Canada. For the most part Canadians tend to view the Red guerrillas marauding across their country’s northern frontier as an amalgamation of atheistic political fanatics, and drunken Slavic bandits, and the Marxist fighters receive little to no support from the local Canadian population.


(A political cartoon from a Canadian newspaper depicts loutish potbellied horsemen dressed in fanciful Hunnic armor ridding across the Alaskan border to ravage a picturesque Canadian town. A silhouette shaped like a soldier holding a bayoneted rifle waits stealthily behind a brick wall at the town's gate. The initials "US" are plainly visible on the soldier's helmet.)



However, the Trotskyists in Alaska are undeterred, and soon a second wave of vanguard revolutionaries is sent out, but this time they are armed with Mosin rifles, explosives, and small artillery pieces.


(Color footage from a Russian propaganda film titled "Snow Storm". Guerrilla fighters on snow skies come to a ridge overlooking a shallow snow covered valley. One of the men points to the other side of the valley and says, "There it is right on time, the Canadian troop train!" The leader of the group places his rifle to his shoulder and uses its telescopic sight to get a closer look at the train as it nears a trestle bridge over a fast moving river. Another member of the group picks up a plunger type detonator from its hiding spot behind some boulders. The group leader advises the man with the plunger "Steady comrade...steady...steady" and then when the train is approximately half way across the bridge he makes a chopping motion with his hand and shouts "Now!". An explosion occurs beneath the tracks and immediately afterwards the steam powered locomotive is diving nose first into the river. A huge secondary explosion occurs when the locomotives boiler is ruptured by an impact with a large boulder in the river. The fighters dance with glee as patriotic music plays in the background.)



The goal of the Alaskan Trotskyists is to weaken the authority of the Canadian Federal government in the Western part of the country, and to either add the Yukon Territory and British Columbia to Russian Alaska, or to turn them into independent Red states aligned with Moscow.


Things finally come to a head when the city of Prince Rupert on the British Columbia coast is attacked and briefly occupied by irregular communist fighters operating from Alaska's southern panhandle.


(Color film footage of the flag of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic snapping in a stiff breeze as drunken guerrilla fighters dance happily in front of the Prince Rupert fire station. The scene pans around to show a small-town business district which has been destroyed. The street is partially blocked by burned out and wrecked vehicles of various types, utility poles askew, mangled trees with their limbs blown off, pockmarked buildings with broken windows, and a dalmatian hungrily eating something from a metal bucket. Local residents are nowhere to be seen.)


The Red guerrillas withdraw after occupying Prince Rupert for less than a week, but the incident sets of alarm bells in both Ottawa and Washington DC. President Dewey assures Canadian President Meighen that the US will help, but Dewey is reluctant to pull troops out the Confederate occupation zones in order to send them off to fight in Alaska, and instead of relying entirely upon US troops to get the job done, Dewey pressures his North American partners to lend some troops to the fight. A coalition of troops from as far away as Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba shall assist US and Canadian troops in the invasion of Alaska, however, the bulk of the ground fighting will be spearheaded by US troops.

Meanwhile most people in the US consider the armed conflict brewing up in Alaska to be rumblings coming from a far off distant room, and the attitude among many in the US is that if the people of Canada wanted their independence so badly, then let them lie in the bed which they've made for themselves. For the time being most US residents can luxuriate in the booming post-war economy, and it will be sometime before the conflict in Alaska touches the lives of the average person.


(Black and white film footage of unskilled Mexican troops awkwardly climbing down a rope ladder slung over the side of a large transport ship. The inexperienced soldiers struggle with their rifles and knapsacks as they make their way down the side of the ship.)


Combat is swift and brutal as US troops, seasoned in the trenches of the Second Great War unleash the latest weapons which the US military industrial complex has to offer. Unsuspecting units of the Russian Red Army garrisoned in Alaska are caught completely flatfooted and are unable to mount a meaningful resistance to the US led invasion, and key strategic points are quickly overrun by coalition forces.


(Black and white film footage of US troops herding a group of Red Army soldiers with their arms raised into an open air stockade. In another scene a US solider points to a wooden crates full of ammunition hidden under the floor of a house, and then he screams into the face of a man with a droopy mustache. The man with the droopy mustache seems terrified, and doesn't seem to understand. The angry soldier takes out his .45 sidearm and uses the butt of its grip to viciously strike the mustached man squarely in the bridge of his nose. The blow instantly produces a fount of blood. The man with the droopy mustache collapses into a heap on the floor.)


Although US coalition forces quickly overrun Alaska's more densely populated areas, during the next few years they will find themselves drawn into an ever expanding guerrilla war with Red insurgents carrying out hit-and-run tactics throughout the Alaskan countryside.


(Black and white film footage of coalition troops, most likely Québécois, mocking religious icons inside a Russian Orthodox Church. A swarthy looking soldier runs his finger up the front of a Russian priest's chest, causing the priest's beard to flip up and to hit him in the face. Other nearby soldiers laugh.)


Eventually after four-and-a-half years of unresolved tit-for-tat fighting in Alaska, the governments of the US, Canada, Quebec, Mexico, and Cuba meet in 1953 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to form the North American Treaty Organization, or NATO as a means of centralizing and coordinate the struggle against Red Trotskyist aggression. Each member of NATO must agree to commit a certain percentage of its GDP to defense spending, and to also commit a certain portion of its military forces to the NATO alliance, but in exchange for doing so, each member will receive the unconditional support and protection of the US military.


By the mid-1950s officials in Moscow finally begin to comprehend that they have bitten off more than they can chew by starting a war with the Germans in Eastern Europe, and also by engaging in a guerrilla war with the United States in Alaska.


(Color film footage of a Tiger IV advancing through a field of spring flowers towards an unseen enemy somewhere along the Polish - Belarus border. A squad of quick-footed German infantry men equipped with the latest banana-clipped Sturmgewehr 49 assault rifles follow closely behind the heavy barrel as they keep their heads down.)


The harsh realization that fanaticism alone won't be enough to carry the global revolution forward finally drives representatives of the RSFR to sit down with their US and Canadian counterparts in Lisbon to discuss the fate of Alaska. A cease fire, but not a permanent peace settlement is agreed to in Lisbon in July of 1955.


(Color film footage of smiling diplomats exchanging copies of signed documents as mediators from the Portuguese government observe.)


However, the cease fire agreement will be a fragile one, and during the next few decades it will be broken on an average of four or five times in a single year. Also, during this same period of time the US Navy will maintain a strong naval blockade along the Alaskan Coast in order to prevent the smuggling of munitions into the disputed region.


(Late 1950s color film footage of members of the Texas Self-Defense Force smartly exiting a huge Sikorsky twin rotor assault helicopter. The squad sized detachment of men quickly leaps out of the barn-doors of the behemoth craft as the landing skids hover a foot or two above the billowing summer grass. As soon as the last man is off loaded, the mammoth Sikorsky climbs back into the sky and disappears. The men quickly form up into teams of four, assault rifles held at the ready, and head out into the nearby trees on a search and destroy mission. )


For their part, the Red government in Moscow does not officially recognize the foreign occupation of Alaska, and mock Alaskan representatives will be sent to both the Politburo and the Party Congress for some time to come.


Eventually an official 1969 peace agreement is reached during the Nixon administration. This agreement will divide Alaska along the 158th line of longitude, allowing Western Alaska to remain a part of the RSFR, while at the same time turning Eastern Alaska into an official territory of the Federal Republic of Canada.


(Color film footage of a crowded two lane Alaskan highway filled with Russian refugees who do not wish to live in Eastern Alaska and are attempting to flee towards the west. The modern asphalt road is filled with horse drawn wagons, tractors, buses, antique Fords, and even a few families making their way on foot.)


The 69 peace treaty will more or less keep the peace in Alaska until August of 1977 when the RSFR tests a 50 megaton sun-bomb on the island of Amchitka in the Aleutian Chain.


(Color film footage of the broiling thirty-five mile tall mushroom cloud over Amchitka. The cloud is so huge that it is nearly impossible to get a sense of its scale.)


US and Canadian officials are of the opinion that the sun-bomb test on Amchitka violates a clause within the 1969 treaty forbidding super-bombs on Alaskan territory, and within a month after the Amchitka test, US and Canadian troops launch a full scale invasion of Western Alaska in search of more super-bombs.


Although the Russian Red Army in Alaska is again caught off guard, and no super-bombs are found in Western Alaska, the conflict quickly spins out of control, and by September of 1978 US troops will find themselves fighting one of the largest land battles in history, as they struggle to push the Red forces of the People’s Democratic Republic of Japan out of South Japan.


Tune in for next week's episode, the Conflict in Northeast Asia.
 
Excellent Work as ever Cire - one has to wonder if Free Canada will adopt elements of a Parliamentary Republic over time (probably through Constitutional Amendments), but that might be a question with more than one possible outcome (depending on the course of events); also HURRAH FOR CANADA and BOO COMMUNISM!

(By the way, allusions to the Canadian and Russian flags sent me looking for possible inspiration - I'll post the most interesting prospects that I found below and all credit to the original Creators!).

https://goo.gl/images/TRjLkK

^^This was my favourite version of a blue-and-red Russian flag.^^


https://goo.gl/images/k8URWJ

^^I'm not keen on the very plain National Flag, but I like the Green-White-Red colour scheme as it suits Canada very neatly (also kudos to the original artist for putting together so many flags in the first place!).^^


https://goo.gl/images/8o9Thm

^^I do like this Republican Canada (National) flag a little better though.^^
 
Excellent Work as ever Cire - one has to wonder if Free Canada will adopt elements of a Parliamentary Republic over time (probably through Constitutional Amendments), but that might be a question with more than one possible outcome (depending on the course of events); also HURRAH FOR CANADA and BOO COMMUNISM!

(By the way, allusions to the Canadian and Russian flags sent me looking for possible inspiration - I'll post the most interesting prospects that I found below and all credit to the original Creators!).

https://goo.gl/images/TRjLkK

^^This was my favourite version of a blue-and-red Russian flag.^^


https://goo.gl/images/k8URWJ

^^I'm not keen on the very plain National Flag, but I like the Green-White-Red colour scheme as it suits Canada very neatly (also kudos to the original artist for putting together so many flags in the first place!).^^


https://goo.gl/images/8o9Thm

^^I do like this Republican Canada (National) flag a little better though.^^

Thank you very much for the compliment.

I believe that the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic existed briefly, in OTL, immediately following the 1917 Russian Revolution. The RSFR had a number of different national flags during its brief existence, and their final flag closely resembled the hammer and sickle flag of the USSR, except that the RSFR flag had a blue border along its pole edge. This was the flag that I was imagining when I was writing my little story, but I have to admit that the flag found on the page titled "A Flag for the New USSR" looks pretty cool, and perhaps revolutionaries living in the year 1947 would prefer its more modern look over the old hammer and sickle?


As far as the Canadian flag goes, I was picturing a flag with alternating red and gold stripes, signifying the number of Canadian states at the time of independence, and there would also be gold canton at the hoist corner of the flag, with a single large red Canadian maple leaf to represent Canada as a whole. I believe that US Secretary of State Prescott Bush would strongly influence the Canadians into adopting a flag which would seem to represent a federal republic, a long the lines of the US, and to break with past British imperial traditions. On the other hand, if the Canadians are going to be granted East Alaska in 1969, maybe they will have to redesign their flag slightly, or maybe they will have to totally redesign it? I'm not a graphic artist, so I have no idea how to create the red and gold Canadian flag which I described above...?
 
How did this new war between Russia and Germany turn out?

Unfortunately I didn't have a copy of In at the Death in front of me to recall what the borders of Czarist Russia and Germany looked like at the end of the Second Great War in 1944, so I had to be a little bit vague on this point.

However, if I remember correctly, I believe that Germany ended up holding large parts of Western Ukraine, most of Belarus, and maybe Latvia and Lithuania as well? If I'm wrong about this, please let me know.

Anyway, I was imagining that German troops are occupying large sections of the Russian Empire in Europe when the 1947 Marxist Revolution breaks out. The Germans are unable to maintain order in the sections of the Russian Empire they control, and in the closing weeks of the revolution, they simply decide to pull their troops back to the Polish border, (maybe they will try to keep the western tip of the Ukraine and maybe Moldova as well. The German plan is to let Russia implode, and then to return after the fighting as calmed down and simply reclaim their territory. (They are simply paying too high of a price in German blood trying to maintain law and order in the middle of a revolution.)


The Germans pull their troops back, but some of their troops have actually been infected with the Marxist virus and they defect the the Russian Revolutionaries. Worse yet, some German troops carry the latest strain of Marxist-Trotskyist ideology back to the German homeland and spark worker riots in Bavaria (analogous to the 1918 Bavarian Soviet Republic which existed in OTL). The German government quickly puts down the uprisings in Bavaria, but the German ruling class quickly realizes that some democratic reforms will be necessary in order to stave off a nationwide Marxist rebellion. The Germans keep their Kaiser, but his status and power are greatly reduced as German voters are allowed to elect their own Chancellor as head of state. As the German post-war economy strengthens, the German Marxists are able to find fewer and fewer people who are willing to listen to their message of revolution.

Meanwhile, as soon as the Trotskyists consolidate their power in Moscow, they immediately a frontal assault
on German positions along the Polish-Belarus border. The plan is to simply drown the Germans in Russian blood, and at first the Germans are nearly driven back to the gates of Warsaw. However, the Germans quickly develop new weapons and tactics to deal with the human waves hitting their positions. (I imagine that the Sturmgewehr 49 is pretty much the same as a Kalashnikov, but maybe with better quality. Perhaps they also have jet powered Stukas by this time, something like the A-10 Thunderbolt in OTL, and most likely the potency of high explosives and chemical weapons have been greatly improved by this time as well.)

At any rate, I imagine that this particular version of Germany won't be burdened by Hitler's tactical ineptitude, and they are able to bleed the Russians white without losing significant numbers of their own troops. The Germans are never able to regain their lost territories inside Russia, and instead an Iron Curtain scenario is created along the Polish border when the armistice is finally signed in 1955. (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania remain in the German orbit, but the Ukraine and the Baltic States are lost to the RSFR.

I'm imagining that the Russians are eager to broker a peace with Germany and the United States because by the mid-1950s they are facing a growing conflict with Chairman Mao in the People's Republic of China.
 
Cire, I have been giving some further thought to your version of Canada after the Southern Victory novels play out and wanted to raise some further thoughts, if I may be permitted to do so (thank you in advance for your patience and thank you also for giving my previous ideas consideration!):-

- This applies more generally to Timeline 191 as a whole, but I believe there has been quite a bit of discussion over what we might call British Columbia after that Province was occupied by Anglophobe Americans for a couple of generations; this may seem embarrassingly obvious, but why not refer to it as "Vancouver" as a nod to the colony of that name and as the most hilariously KISS option possible? (assuming, of course, that one does not wish to speak of "North Columbia" or "Canadian Columbia").


- I would imagine that "Functioning Animosity" best describes the relationship between the Republique de Quebec and their immediate neighbours to the West (the Anglos seeing La Belle Republique as having collected their thirty pieces of silver with unbecoming willingness and the Canadians being seen for pig-headed Tories turned hypocrites), though one imagines that more optimistic parties in the Canadian Federation & very old-school Quebecois may yet hold out some hope for a reunion (though whether this is even vaguely plausible is an interesting question).


- I would guess that Jonathan Moss would have been contacted by the Canadian Government (though whether in hopes he would serve in a military or judicial capacity is an interesting question) and would bet that even after his likely refusal the US Government would "suggest" he attend the ceremonies creating the new Far North Republic as a symbol of American-Canadian Friendship anyway.


- Is the Canadian Legislature divided into a Senate and a House of Representatives or a Senate and a Lower House? (it is almost certainly "Congress" and not "Parliament" but one would like to imagine that Electoral Districts are still known as "Ridings"). One imagines that no Canadian Political party would bear the name "Democrats" or "Socialists" (for the sake of spiting Theodore Roosevelt, General Custer and Upton Sinclair all at once) and it seems unlikely there would be a Liberal Party (due to the high likelihood that the Liberals have been top dogs in Quebec since the Republic was formed, with all the negative connotations to Anglo-Canadians that implies).

I tend to imagine the major local parties are the Republicans (the party deriving from the politicians who actually made the Republic possible, willing to do business with the United States for the sake of making Canada Free, even when it must become a little less Canadian in the process) and the Commonwealth Party (which sees the Republicans as Democrats with a Canadian accent, tend to be mildly Socialist and would much prefer to ignore the United States where possible - or at any rate would like to live in a Parliamentary, rather than a Presidential Republic; they might even be interested in pursuing closer ties with the former British Empire, although that is likely to be a policy of the fringes even in this Party).


- I would imagine that "Tory" is a dangerously loaded term in this Canada, being a term likely to be applied to bitter-ender British Empire Loyalists and heavily associated with the Lunatic Fringe by Americans & the General Public alike; one wonders if any holdouts of this particular persuasion were left to resent the infiltration of Alaskan Communists? (one can imagine some fairly savage crises between these two very different guerrilla factions).


- You have informed us that the Canadian Federation has an army and it seems highly likely, given the vast spaces involved when seeking to police and defend the vastness of Canada, that Canada must have an Air Corps (probably nothing quite so large and powerful as a full-blown Air Force) and very probably regiments deployed by air against Guerrilla bases & forces besides, but would I be correct in deducing that the Canadian Navy is very small at best? (if not outright nonexistent).

One idea I like is that while the Canadian Republic has no Marine Corps - one cannot imagine what the Self Defence forces of the Great White North would need a seagoing and amphibious assault force for! - it DOES have an Army Ranger Regiment (in the spirit of Roger's Rangers), employed as a key strike force and for rapid reaction against Alaskan Guerrillas (it may even be the Airborne Force I mentioned earlier).


- Out of curiosity may I please ask if the Mounties of the Canadian Republic are the "Canadian Mounted Police" or the "Federal Canadian Mounted Police" or do they go by some other name? (the "Republic of Canada Mounted Police" might be a little TOO perfect though!).

- Also, would the Canadian Republic make a logical refuge for Southern Coloureds looking to get as far away from the former Confederate States as possible?

Allow me to conclude there and please allow me to thank you once again for looking over my ideas!
 
Not related to these thoughts on Canada put possibly useful food for thought anyway; do you think it likely that the formerly-British Caribbean Islands would become American Commonwealths/U.S. Insular area like Guam or Puerto Rico? (being too small to trouble with occupying and possibly not acceptable as future US States or as Independent Republics in their own right, for whatever reason).
 
Cire, I have been giving some further thought to your version of Canada after the Southern Victory novels play out and wanted to raise some further thoughts, if I may be permitted to do so (thank you in advance for your patience and thank you also for giving my previous ideas consideration!):-

- This applies more generally to Timeline 191 as a whole, but I believe there has been quite a bit of discussion over what we might call British Columbia after that Province was occupied by Anglophobe Americans for a couple of generations; this may seem embarrassingly obvious, but why not refer to it as "Vancouver" as a nod to the colony of that name and as the most hilariously KISS option possible? (assuming, of course, that one does not wish to speak of "North Columbia" or "Canadian Columbia").


- I would imagine that "Functioning Animosity" best describes the relationship between the Republique de Quebec and their immediate neighbours to the West (the Anglos seeing La Belle Republique as having collected their thirty pieces of silver with unbecoming willingness and the Canadians being seen for pig-headed Tories turned hypocrites), though one imagines that more optimistic parties in the Canadian Federation & very old-school Quebecois may yet hold out some hope for a reunion (though whether this is even vaguely plausible is an interesting question).


- I would guess that Jonathan Moss would have been contacted by the Canadian Government (though whether in hopes he would serve in a military or judicial capacity is an interesting question) and would bet that even after his likely refusal the US Government would "suggest" he attend the ceremonies creating the new Far North Republic as a symbol of American-Canadian Friendship anyway.


- Is the Canadian Legislature divided into a Senate and a House of Representatives or a Senate and a Lower House? (it is almost certainly "Congress" and not "Parliament" but one would like to imagine that Electoral Districts are still known as "Ridings"). One imagines that no Canadian Political party would bear the name "Democrats" or "Socialists" (for the sake of spiting Theodore Roosevelt, General Custer and Upton Sinclair all at once) and it seems unlikely there would be a Liberal Party (due to the high likelihood that the Liberals have been top dogs in Quebec since the Republic was formed, with all the negative connotations to Anglo-Canadians that implies).

I tend to imagine the major local parties are the Republicans (the party deriving from the politicians who actually made the Republic possible, willing to do business with the United States for the sake of making Canada Free, even when it must become a little less Canadian in the process) and the Commonwealth Party (which sees the Republicans as Democrats with a Canadian accent, tend to be mildly Socialist and would much prefer to ignore the United States where possible - or at any rate would like to live in a Parliamentary, rather than a Presidential Republic; they might even be interested in pursuing closer ties with the former British Empire, although that is likely to be a policy of the fringes even in this Party).


- I would imagine that "Tory" is a dangerously loaded term in this Canada, being a term likely to be applied to bitter-ender British Empire Loyalists and heavily associated with the Lunatic Fringe by Americans & the General Public alike; one wonders if any holdouts of this particular persuasion were left to resent the infiltration of Alaskan Communists? (one can imagine some fairly savage crises between these two very different guerrilla factions).


- You have informed us that the Canadian Federation has an army and it seems highly likely, given the vast spaces involved when seeking to police and defend the vastness of Canada, that Canada must have an Air Corps (probably nothing quite so large and powerful as a full-blown Air Force) and very probably regiments deployed by air against Guerrilla bases & forces besides, but would I be correct in deducing that the Canadian Navy is very small at best? (if not outright nonexistent).

One idea I like is that while the Canadian Republic has no Marine Corps - one cannot imagine what the Self Defence forces of the Great White North would need a seagoing and amphibious assault force for! - it DOES have an Army Ranger Regiment (in the spirit of Roger's Rangers), employed as a key strike force and for rapid reaction against Alaskan Guerrillas (it may even be the Airborne Force I mentioned earlier).


- Out of curiosity may I please ask if the Mounties of the Canadian Republic are the "Canadian Mounted Police" or the "Federal Canadian Mounted Police" or do they go by some other name? (the "Republic of Canada Mounted Police" might be a little TOO perfect though!).

- Also, would the Canadian Republic make a logical refuge for Southern Coloureds looking to get as far away from the former Confederate States as possible?

Allow me to conclude there and please allow me to thank you once again for looking over my ideas!

Tiro, Renaming British Columbia in order to remove British influence in the new Canadian republic is a very interesting idea, and to be honest with you I didn't really think about it, but now that you mention it - it makes a lot of sense. I suppose that the most sensible thing to do is too simply drop the "British" from British Columbia, and to just rename it "Columbia"? After all, I imagine that authorities probably wouldn't want to subject the citizens of British Columbia to too much cultural shock at one time, and that preserving the name "Columbia" would probably be the best way to provide some continuity from the Dominion of Canada, to the Federal Republic of Canada. (That way Canadians get to feel that they are still living in their own country.)


I imagine that there might be some general low-grade animosity between the peoples of the Federal Republic of Canada, and the Republic of Quebec, but the friction is mainly at the level of the general populace, and not between the two national governments.


Some Canadians are upset over the fact that Québécois troops served in the occupation forces which were once garrisoned across Canada, and during the occupation years Québécois soldiers were actually much more inclined to commit human rights violations against Canadians, than were the troops from the US. (Perhaps the Québécois were seeking revenge for the amount of time they were forced to be a part of the Dominion of Canada against their will?)


A few Canadians try to bring the issue of human rights violations committed by Québécois soldiers to their elected officials, but usually the officials claim that there is insufficient evidence, or that the accused Québécois soldiers cannot be identified. As the years pass, the issue is generally forgotten about, and few if any Québécois soldiers ever face serious punishment for their crimes during the occupation years.


Initially when Quebec was granted independence following the end of the First Great War, a few Canadian nationalists vowed to reconquer Quebec as soon as the US occupation could be overthrown. However, by the time Canadian independence occurs in September of 1946, most Canadians realize that Québécois are too culturally different to be citizens of modern Canada, and most Canadians no longer want Québécois influence inside their country. After all, Canadians are English speaking Protestants, while Québécois are French speaking Roman Catholics, and the two groups are somewhat incompatible. Most Canadians are so happy just to finally have their own independence, that they no longer pine away over Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Besides, perhaps the people living in those regions weren't real Canadians anyway, or the saying goes.


Additionally, the US will not really tolerate open conflicts between its satellite countries. President Dewey threatened both Texas President Wright Patman, and Mexican President Martin Alcantar Valdés with all sorts of terrible things if the two of them didn't play nice, so I imagine that Dewey would handle any conflicts occurring between the leaders of Canada and Quebec in exactly the same manner.


I have decided to label the conservative Canadian party as "Federalists", but I haven't really given too much thought on what the liberal party of Canada should be called? I was thinking to call them "Labour" but that might seem too British? How about just "The National Liberal Party of Canada"? I think that there was a party in West Germany with a similar name during the 1950s and 60s? Anyway, no more parties in Canada using the name "Whig" or "Tory" that much is certain. The Federalists are pretty much the same as US Democrats, but with a Canadian accent.


I think that socialism wouldn't be very popular in Canada, so there probably wouldn't be an official socialist party anywhere in the country. Maybe a few Americans who have settled in big cities are socialists, maybe a few professors are socialists, but that's about it. Most Canadians tend to be somewhat traditionalist, and concepts such as atheism, overthrowing the system, and a global dictatorship of the proletariat simply do not fit into their view of the world. Socialism becomes even less popular once Marxist guerrillas from Alaska begin committing acts of terrorism and sabotage on Canadian soil.


The Canadian Congress is split between a Senate and a House of Representatives, just like in the US, and I base that on the fact that the Congress of the Philippines (a former US colony) in OTL is divided exactly in the same manner.


I'm imagining that in 1972 that the people of the US will elect Republican William Carter to the White House based upon his promises to keep the US out of a major war. The US somewhat loosens its grips on its satellite states between 1972 and 1980, and maybe the people of Canada could opt for a parliamentary form of government at that time, if they wanted to, but after thirty years as a federal republic, why would they want to?


Canada's big problem during its first few year of independence is that it does not have a competent officer corps. Plenty of Canadian officer candidates are sent off to study at West Point, in the US, but it will take at least ten years before these officers have enough practical battle field experience to effectively command an army in the field. Also, the Canadians tend to spend most of the national defense budget on their army while somewhat neglecting their naval and air-power. It is felt by officials in Ottawa that the the US Navy can take care of the blockade of the Alaskan Coast, so why should valuable resources be taken away from the army in order to build a large navy, when the US is already taking care of the job? I don't imagine the Canadians having a huge air-force at this point, maybe just enough to carry out routine air patrols over certain key strategic areas, but not enough to engage in a major bombing campaign.


I'm imagining that the Mounties I described are being an extension of the mounted police which were started by the British during the 19th century. The US allows this organization to exist throughout the occupation years, because they are sometimes useful in keeping law and order, and at the time of independence, they are the closest thing which Canada has to an official army. I remember reading that (in OTL) the RCMP were used by the Canadian government to infiltrate the Canadian Communist Party, so maybe in the 191 universe the Mounties might be willing to work with the US? (Not sure if anything like this was ever mentioned in the books?)


I'm also imagining that many of the black refugees from the Confederacy will have Marxist leanings, and that when they hear of the revolution occurring in Russia, several hundred thousand of the death camp survivors will go over to Russia in order to join the struggle. A few others might go to Liberia where they over throw the existing government and replace it with a Marxist one. Some of them might flee to other parts of the world as well, but I don't see Canada as being a beacon, simply because Canada is such a conservative country, and the blacks are so heavily into Marxism.


(I was working on a story set in the year 1964 in which a group of blacks from the Confederacy are now living in a cotton collective on the shores of the Aral Sea. The black refugees living in this camp feel that the government in Moscow isn't doing enough to overthrow the capitalist system in America, so they send a young girl back to American to agitate the blacks who are still living there. However, after visiting places such as Chicago, Compton, and Oakland, (traditional black communities in OTL) she is unable to find supporters and decides to hide out in Chihuahua, Mexico. Once in Mexico, her path crosses with a disaffected loner from New York City (based upon Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald). Oswald has come to Chihuahua in search of remnants of the Freedom Party, but he is disheartened to find that the Freedom Party movement is nothing but a bunch of old alcoholics living the mountains, with no plans for the future. Oswald and the black female refugee from the Aral collective meet in a Mexican jail, and in spite of their idealogical differences they fall in love. They both realize that political fanaticism isn't the answer, and they spend the rest of their lives living together in the mountains of Sonora raising chickens and goats.)

Yes, I think that the British possessions in the Caribbean would become US commonwealth territories, and that the US would want to keep them for their strategic value.
 
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Cire, thank you very kindly for addressing my thoughts on these topics - please pardon my taking so long to send a reply.:)


Tiro, Renaming British Columbia in order to remove British influence in the new Canadian republic is a very interesting idea, and to be honest with you I didn't really think about it, but now that you mention it - it makes a lot of sense. I suppose that the most sensible thing to do is too simply drop the "British" from British Columbia, and to just rename it "Columbia"? After all, I imagine that authorities probably wouldn't want to subject the citizens of British Columbia to too much cultural shock at one time, and that preserving the name "Columbia" would probably be the best way to provide some continuity from the Dominion of Canada, to the Federal Republic of Canada. (That way Canadians get to feel that they are still living in their own country.)

Admittedly I thought that - given the District of Columbia and the sheer number of other places called "Columbia" in the United States, along with the Republic of Colombia - the Occupation Authorities would just refer to the former Province as "Vancouver" to avoid confusion, with there being some possibility that the Canadians might go along with that even after becoming an Independent Nation through sheer institutional inertia.


I imagine that there might be some general low-grade animosity between the peoples of the Federal Republic of Canada, and the Republic of Quebec, but the friction is mainly at the level of the general populace, and not between the two national governments.

Not yet, at least - since Politicians are drawn from the general populace, one imagines there must be at least one party prepared to cultivate a grudge against Quebec for old times sake (not to mention because Quebec effectively controls Canada's access to the Atlantic and can interrupt it at whim).


After all, Canadians are English speaking Protestants, while Québécois are French speaking Roman Catholics, and the two groups are somewhat incompatible.

Your point is well made overall, though one believes that the populations of Canada and Quebec were rather more complicated than that implies, albeit not necessarily cosmopolitan, even before 1914 (and will be more so after the latter absorbs their gains from the ending of US Occupation in Canada).


Additionally, the US will not really tolerate open conflicts between its satellite countries. President Dewey threatened both Texas President Wright Patman, and Mexican President Martin Alcantar Valdés with all sorts of terrible things if the two of them didn't play nice, so I imagine that Dewey would handle any conflicts occurring between the leaders of Canada and Quebec in exactly the same manner.

I wonder how future US Presidents will handle the matter though? (Will they make both sides play nice or play one against the other to keep both from making life difficult for the United States of America?).


I think that socialism wouldn't be very popular in Canada, so there probably wouldn't be an official socialist party anywhere in the country.

Given that the Federalists are essentially Canadian Democrats, it seems highly likely that their Loyal Opposition would rally around the goal of spreading the wealth a little (if only to win some of it away from the Military Industrial complex); it also seems likely that this Opposition would incorporate elements of the parties agitating for a Parliamentary Republic (if only because they're going to be politicking SOMEWHERE and are unlikely to buddy up with the Presidential Republicans in the short term), so I would like to suggest naming this opposition party the "Commonwealth" Party to allude to its desire for a system less like the one handed out by the US Democrats.

It's also a name that hints at Canada's non-US roots which might also appeal to the sort of voters whom I would imagine it attracts, while also being associated with Oliver Cromwell and all his anti-Monarchism, which would neutralise any efforts to paint them as being a little too attached to Canada's past as part of the British Empire.

You could also call them "Republicans" but that name might not have sufficient cachet in the course of Timeline-191.


The Canadian Congress is split between a Senate and a House of Representatives, just like in the US, and I base that on the fact that the Congress of the Philippines (a former US colony) in OTL is divided exactly in the same manner.

May I please ask if Elections are held on roughly the same schedule?


I'm imagining that in 1972 that the people of the US will elect Republican William Carter to the White House based upon his promises to keep the US out of a major war.

I would suggest this is a little too soon after the Second Great War for a Southern Politician to be elected President of the United States, especially as a Third Party politician; Woodrow Wilson wasn't elected until 1912, after all, and that was after a period of War which only lasted for four years. I'd suggest moving President Billy into the 1980s or even the 1990s to allow memories to cool a little and a new generation of voters or two to grow up.


I don't imagine the Canadians having a huge air-force at this point, maybe just enough to carry out routine air patrols over certain key strategic areas, but not enough to engage in a major bombing campaign.

This might actually be a key reason for Canadian failures against Guerrilla Forces - given the sheer size of Canada it is far easier to reconnoitre a large area and rush forces from point to point by the air: my understanding is that Air Power can play a crucial role in making it hard for Guerrilla forces to maintain the freedom of movement & stealth upon which their success depends.


I'm imagining that the Mounties I described are being an extension of the mounted police which were started by the British during the 19th century. The US allows this organization to exist throughout the occupation years, because they are sometimes useful in keeping law and order, and at the time of independence, they are the closest thing which Canada has to an official army. I remember reading that (in OTL) the RCMP were used by the Canadian government to infiltrate the Canadian Communist Party, so maybe in the 191 universe the Mounties might be willing to work with the US? (Not sure if anything like this was ever mentioned in the books?)

Given their nature as an Organisation under Royal Patronage and the general disrespect with which the US appears to have treated Canadian Institutions, my guess is that the RCMP would be broken up (not least because it would be an effective paramilitary organisation and possible source of resistance), but that its former members may have made themselves sufficiently useful to continue in some form of employment.

In fact disbanding the Mounties in 1917 might create a lingering mystique which would make reactivating the force in 1946 (or a little earlier) might well win the US efforts to create a Canadian Republic a surprising amount of Goodwill - allowing the Government that results to be seen as separate from the Occupation that went before.


Please allow me to conclude by offering my compliments, my thanks and my respects for your continuing efforts to enrich Timeline 191 - not to mention your own patience with me!
 
Cire, thank you very kindly for addressing my thoughts on these topics - please pardon my taking so long to send a reply.:)



Q: Admittedly I thought that - given the District of Columbia and the sheer number of other places called "Columbia" in the United States, along with the Republic of Colombia - the Occupation Authorities would just refer to the former Province as "Vancouver" to avoid confusion, with there being some possibility that the Canadians might go along with that even after becoming an Independent Nation through sheer institutional inertia.

A: Well, I see your point, and I guess that from now on I'll begin referring to British Colombia as the Canadian state of Vancouver. I'm not sure how soon this particular topic will come up again, but when it does I'll try to weave in an explanation that it was renamed at the time of Canadian independence. You've sold me on this one. I agree that having to explain the Canadian state of Colombia versus the District of Colombia, or the South American nation of Colombia might get tiresome, and simply naming it "Vancouver" should tell everyone right off the bat that I'm talking about the West Coast region of Canada.

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Q: Not yet, at least - since Politicians are drawn from the general populace, one imagines there must be at least one party prepared to cultivate a grudge against Quebec for old times sake (not to mention because Quebec effectively controls Canada's access to the Atlantic and can interrupt it at whim).

A: The other republics on the North American continent are not truly independent states in the way that we would think of them in OTL, and in many ways they are somewhat like the old Warsaw Pact countries in OTL (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungaria, and Albania) whose leaders used to have to ask Moscow for permission to go to the bathroom. (The situation between the 191 US and its client states isn't has harsh as the relationship between the OTL relationship between the USSR and the members of the Warsaw Pact, but it is in the ballpark.

Also, during the late 1940s, most Canadians are more concerned about the recent occupation of the Canadian city of Prince Rupert by Marxist guerrillas operating from Russian Alaska, than they are about some farmer's daughter who may have been abused by Québécois occupation troops three or four years ago. The Alaskan Marxists are viewed as a real and emanate threat to the peace and security of Canada, while the Québécois are generally thought of as just being run of the mill petty criminals who also happen to be rude, arrogant, and haughty. No one is worried about Québécois troops invading Canada and causing wholesale destruction, but based upon recent events in Prince Rupert, there is a real chance that Red troops from Alaska might do so.

Also, since Québécois troops helped participate in the 1948 US led invasion of Alaska, and Québécois troops will remain in Alaska as peace keepers during the next three decades or, Canadian politicians are not eager to start a diplomatic conflict with the Republic of Quebec which may make them question their need to keep troops in Alaska.

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Q: Your point is well made overall, though one believes that the populations of Canada and Quebec were rather more complicated than that implies, albeit not necessarily cosmopolitan, even before 1914 (and will be more so after the latter absorbs their gains from the ending of US Occupation in Canada).


A: Well, I like to think of my own version of the 191 timeline as being version 191.1, and in my 191.1 timeline, things may have diverged slightly more between Quebec and Canada than was immediately obvious in the original 191 timeline. One of the things that sticks out in my mind from reading the 191 novels, is that the people of Quebec generally seemed very happy when Quebec became an independent nation following the First Great War.

If you stop and think about it, there is roughly a quarter of a century between the period when Quebec becomes an independent nation, and the end of the Second Great War. The people of Quebec and Canada already had uniquely different cultures prior to Quebec independence in 1917, but I'm imaging that those differences would quickly grow even wider between 1917 and 1946, when Canada finally gets its own independence. (Similar to what happened to the peoples of the US and CS after the War of Session. They both grew in different directions, and neither of them was really the same people that they had been before.)

I imagine by the late 1940s, that the people of Canada will take a look at the people of Quebec, and then the Canadians will collectively say to themselves, - You know what, those Québécois were never really real Canadians anyway, they never really wanted to be a part of Canada, and we are better off building our own country with out them interfering in it with their foreign values.

Maybe there is a 191.2 version of the timeline were Canadians are itching to go to war with Quebec, but that isn't the version that I'm imagining at the moment.


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Q: I wonder how future US Presidents will handle the matter though? (Will they make both sides play nice or play one against the other to keep both from making life difficult for the United States of America?).


A: Generally all US presidents between Dewey and Richard Nixon will use exactly the same tactics when dealing with subordinate members of the North American Treaty Organization. If a polite recommendation from the US Secretary of State isn't adhered to, then pressure can be applied by a variety of methods such as restricting access to the lucrative US consumer market. If the President of Cuba, for example, is suddenly unable to sell as much sugar as he did the year before, then the value of his currency may drop. If the Cuban Dollar declines, then inflation will set in and Cubans will look for someone to blame. However, if trade restrictions fail to yield the proper results, there is always the possibility of a juicy sex scandal being leaked to the media. If a sex scandal fails to yield results, then there is always the possibility of a plane crash or a drowning accident to set things right again. (This is a very different world from our own.)

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Q: Given that the Federalists are essentially Canadian Democrats, it seems highly likely that their Loyal Opposition would rally around the goal of spreading the wealth a little (if only to win some of it away from the Military Industrial complex); it also seems likely that this Opposition would incorporate elements of the parties agitating for a Parliamentary Republic (if only because they're going to be politicking SOMEWHERE and are unlikely to buddy up with the Presidential Republicans in the short term), so I would like to suggest naming this opposition party the "Commonwealth" Party to allude to its desire for a system less like the one handed out by the US Democrats.

It's also a name that hints at Canada's non-US roots which might also appeal to the sort of voters whom I would imagine it attracts, while also being associated with Oliver Cromwell and all his anti-Monarchism, which would neutralise any efforts to paint them as being a little too attached to Canada's past as part of the British Empire.

You could also call them "Republicans" but that name might not have sufficient cachet in the course of Timeline-191.

A: Following the end of the Second Great War there is somewhat of a labor shortage in the US, due to the large number of working age men who were killed during the war. These conditions have turned the labor market into an employee's market, where employers are forced to pay competitive wages in order to retain quality workers. In addition to the competitive labor market, labor unions continue to remain strong and they also help to ensure that US workers are earning top dollar for their hours worked.

The higher living standards occurring throughout the late 1940s and on into the early 1970s has made it difficult for leftist political parties to build a platform based upon poverty and income disparity, as the Socialists were able to do in the US during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As the robust post-war economy continues to make wealth redistributing an unsellable political ideal, leftist parties such as the US Republican Party instead focus on issues such as demilitarization, women's rights, the environment, and aide to poor countries. Between the end of the Second Great War and the early 1970s, the message of the Republican party is muddled and considered irrelevant by the vast majority of US voters. The situation is more or less the same in Canada as well. The party in opposition to the Federalists simply don't have a coherent message to sell to the Canadian voters, and they do not do well in elections.



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Q: May I please ask if Elections are held on roughly the same schedule?

A: I haven't really thought about that much, but it probably wouldn't be smart to have both Canada and the US holding simultaneous elections for their national leaders, for a number of reasons. Well, if Canada's first president came into office 1946, then that would put their election cycle two years off from the US, so then it would be safe to give the Canadian President a four year term, just like in the US.

I'm imagining that the US would do everything to turn the other countries of North America into miniature carbon copies of itself, if that helps.


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Q: I would suggest this is a little too soon after the Second Great War for a Southern Politician to be elected President of the United States, especially as a Third Party politician; Woodrow Wilson wasn't elected until 1912, after all, and that was after a period of War which only lasted for four years. I'd suggest moving President Billy into the 1980s or even the 1990s to allow memories to cool a little and a new generation of voters or two to grow up.


A: I understand what you're saying, but in my earlier post titled, How Texas Becomes The First CS State to Rejoin the Union, Texas Attorney General Lyndon Johnson says to President Patman that the people of Texas might be willing to vote for becoming a US state, if the US government agrees to treat the people of Texas like real Americans.

I think that President Dewey will eventually realize that the only way to bring the defeated CS back into the Union without spilling buckets of blood, is to allow the former Confederate citizens full access to US democracy, once their states have been readmitted back into the Union. After all, what would be the incentive in rejoining the United States, if the people living in your state are going to be treated like second class citizens for the next fifty years?

I was working on a conversation between President Dewey and his own attorney general in which Dewey states that a future United States of America most likely won't look at all like it did before the start of the war, and instead it will most likely look like an amalgamation between the Confederate States and the United States, with political attributes of both.

The US Constitution would have to be amended, and members of the Freedom Party would forever be barred from holding elected office without question.

Back in the 1970s, (in OTL) Angela Merkel was a member of an East German communist organization known as the Free German Youth, but today she is the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. (Whether she is actually a good leader or not is a different issue.)

So, if Angela Merkel can become the Chancellor of Germany a mere fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is it really that improbable that Billy Carter can become the President of the United States roughly thirty years after the defeat of the Confederate States?



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Q: This might actually be a key reason for Canadian failures against Guerrilla Forces - given the sheer size of Canada it is far easier to reconnoitre a large area and rush forces from point to point by the air: my understanding is that Air Power can play a crucial role in making it hard for Guerrilla forces to maintain the freedom of movement & stealth upon which their success depends.


A: That is most likely a major factor, but another factor is that, unlike the United States, Canadians don't have a strong military tradition to draw upon, and the Marxists guerrillas operating out of Alaska are so shocking that they seem almost like aliens from a different world. When the US invaded Canada they didn't want to subject everyone to collectivism and to totally remake society as the Marxist wish to do. The Canadians are shocked by the fanatical veal of the Marxist, and they are somewhat intimidated by their radical and extremist tactics.



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Q: Given their nature as an Organisation under Royal Patronage and the general disrespect with which the US appears to have treated Canadian Institutions, my guess is that the RCMP would be broken up (not least because it would be an effective paramilitary organisation and possible source of resistance), but that its former members may have made themselves sufficiently useful to continue in some form of employment.

In fact disbanding the Mounties in 1917 might create a lingering mystique which would make reactivating the force in 1946 (or a little earlier) might well win the US efforts to create a Canadian Republic a surprising amount of Goodwill - allowing the Government that results to be seen as separate from the Occupation that went before.

A: I cannot actually recall if the Mounties were mentioned anywhere in any of the books? I was imagining a back story in which a commander within the Mounties is willing to work with US occupation authorities by helping them nab Canadian nationalists who are setting off bombs, and his reason for working with the US military isn't that he loves the US, it is because he doesn't want Canadian hostages executed for acts of sabotage carried out by the nationalists.

At any rate, I imagine that the US would have to leave some sort of local civilian law enforcement intact during the occupation, from my point of view it would make sense that the Mounties would be the closest thing that Canada would have to a national army at the time of independence, and that is why I had them raising the new flag on Independence Day.


Please allow me to conclude by offering my compliments, my thanks and my respects for your continuing efforts to enrich Timeline 191 - not to mention your own patience with me!


Sorry, I have never been able to figure out how the quote function is supposed to work in this forum.
 
Cire, that's no problem and I appreciate the time & trouble you have taken to answer me so fully a great deal; for the record I usually default to highlighting sections of text then pressing "Reply" when the Quote/Reply button pops up (for the record, if you select "Quote" then you'll need to come down to the reply box and press the "Insert Quotes" button that appears at the bottom left). This makes the highlighted text pop up in front of the "typing cursor" and has always seemed more convenient.

You still need to take care that cursor is not in the middle of any block of text, however, otherwise the highlighted section will be pasted RIGHT THERE (requiring a certain amount of Cut/Paste to fix things properly).
 
A: I haven't really thought about that much, but it probably wouldn't be smart to have both Canada and the US holding simultaneous elections for their national leaders, for a number of reasons. Well, if Canada's first president came into office 1946, then that would put their election cycle two years off from the US, so then it would be safe to give the Canadian President a four year term, just like in the US.

One imagines that there would still be local variations based on the differing environments (physical and cultural); for example having learned of a recent alteration to Canadian Election laws, I would like to suggest borrowing inspiration making "Election Day" for the Federal Republic of Canada the "3rd Monday of October in the fourth year after the previous poll" (one assumes the earlier date is due to the somewhat harsher Canadian Winter).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_election_dates_in_Canada

^^You can find out more here.^^

For the record this would result in the second Canadian Presidential Election falling on 16th October 1950, with the victorious candidate presumably being inaugurated (or affirmed) in 1951 - with future Presidential Elections falling in 1954, 1958, 1962, 1966, 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002.


You may be amused to know that I also drew lots to apportion Canadian Senators to their various classes - actually wrote out "Ontario 1" and "Ontario 2" & so forth onto various slips of paper, put them in a hat (with the Canadian maple leaf on it, an old souvenir) and put the first name into Class 1, the second into Class 2 and so forth.

This isn't a regular habit of mine, but I've been reading up a bit on the American System of Government and decided to give it a try. For the record:-

-:Class 1 includes Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories*, Manitoba, Yukon (first Senators of this class will be up for re-election in 1948).

-:Class 2 includes "British Columbia", Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba (first Senators of this class will be up for re-election in 1950).

-:Class 3 includes Yukon, Ontario, Alberta, Northwest Territories*, "British Columbia" (first Senators of this class will be up for re-election in 1952).**


*A rename might be in order, assuming they become a full State as part of the Federal Republic of Canada - the "State of Buffalo" perhaps? (a name floated for at least one Western Province of Canada prior to the Great War of Our Own timeline).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Buffalo

**As a note one borrowed from United States and Confederate precedent; to ensure that election cycles for each Senatorial Class will be appropriately staggered, the first Class 1 Senators will only serve two years and the first Class 2 Senators only four years (hence the need to draw straws in order to determine who belongs to each class) with the normal six-year cycle kicking in only thereafter.

So a Class 1 Senator elected in 1946 must stand for re-election in 1948, but after that will not need to worry about re-Election until 1954; his Class 2 compatriot will have to stand in 1950, with the next Senatorial Elections for his class coming along in 1956. Meanwhile their Class 3 counterparts presumably lean back, smoke a cigar and start sampling the very best pork barrels even as their less hardscrabble peers live on their nerves ...


I have also done my best to compute rough population figures for the Federal Republic of Canada, working from figures available on Wikipedia, using the "Historical Population" figures from the "Canada as a Whole since Confederation" from the first page (using the 1936 total to simulate casualties in the Great War, as well as a fairly bloody Occupation) and the "Proportion of Canada's population" figures given on the second (allowing me to remove Quebec et al from the total).

This gives a Canadian population of 7,665,000 in 1946; going by the old "1 representative for every 30,000 head of population but every state gets at least 1 congressman" rule of thumb, that means the Canadian House of Representatives should number either 255 or 256 strong Vs a 14-strong Senate (all this leaves out Alaska, but one cannot be certain what form the Canadian Occupation of that territory will take). Give me a day or two and I should have a very rough estimate of Population figures in the various Canadian States (as well as Quebec).

My calculations will be a rough as a slap-and-tickle session without the feather duster, but should hopefully hold water long enough to allow some ideas to flourish!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Canada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_population
 
If one might take the Liberty of asking a last question or two:-

-:May I please ask which nation has received the Province of Prince Edward Island? (was it lumped in with the other, former Maritime Provinces as a US acquisition or was it ceded to the Republique Quebecois?).

-:Would I be correct in guessing that the Canadian Air Force uses a Maple Leaf with crossed swords as National Insignia for their military aircraft? (influenced by the Eagle-and-Crossed Swords of the USA); One tends to imagine that Air Force Roundels would be thin on the ground in this version of North America, by virtue of their association with the defeated Entente Powers.
 
A: Back in the 1970s, (in OTL) Angela Merkel was a member of an East German communist organization known as the Free German Youth, but today she is the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. (Whether she is actually a good leader or not is a different issue.)

So, if Angela Merkel can become the Chancellor of Germany a mere fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is it really that improbable that Billy Carter can become the President of the United States roughly thirty years after the defeat of the Confederate States?

(Please pardon the limited size of this highlight; one didn't wish to include your whole reply, which might be redundant, but wanted any third party casual readers to be able to understand what the following response came in answer to):

Well it must be said that the situation between East & West Germany is rather different to that of North & South in Timeline-191; for one thing the two halves of Germany were separated only unwillingly in 1945, for another neither German Republic ever engaged the other in open warfare (while the US & CSA savaged each other in two of the bloodiest conflicts in Human History) and for a third both halves of Germany were equally guilty of culpability in the actions of the Third Reich (which is not the case where US & CSA are concerned).

While one agrees that a Legal Amnesty (though not a blanket amnesty) is the most logical way to ensure the Confederate States are eventually re-assimilated into the United States of America (assuming that such a reunification is even POSSIBLE after almost 80 years of sustained hatred), it is still difficult to imagine that enough of the Northern Electorate would combine with the Reconstructed South to Elect a Confederate-born President only 30-odd years after the Second Great War.

It does occur to me that showing attempts by the United States to assimilate the Confederacy FAIL in the long run might arguably be a fascinating storyline in its own right.


For the record these are purely personal opinions and I will defer to your judgements where Timeline-191 (C) is concerned.
 
Cire, that's no problem and I appreciate the time & trouble you have taken to answer me so fully a great deal; for the record I usually default to highlighting sections of text then pressing "Reply" when the Quote/Reply button pops up (for the record, if you select "Quote" then you'll need to come down to the reply box and press the "Insert Quotes" button that appears at the bottom left). This makes the highlighted text pop up in front of the "typing cursor" and has always seemed more convenient.

You still need to take care that cursor is not in the middle of any block of text, however, otherwise the highlighted section will be pasted RIGHT THERE (requiring a certain amount of Cut/Paste to fix things properly).
I'll give that a try next time.
 
A: Back in the 1970s, (in OTL) Angela Merkel was a member of an East German communist organization known as the Free German Youth, but today she is the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. (Whether she is actually a good leader or not is a different issue.)

So, if Angela Merkel can become the Chancellor of Germany a mere fifteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is it really that improbable that Billy Carter can become the President of the United States roughly thirty years after the defeat of the Confederate States?
.


So, when I started to think about what might happen in the years immediately following "In at the Death" and it occurred to me that world of the late 1940s would have to be a radically different place from what it had been at the start of the decade. I suppose that someone could create a late 1940s version of the 191 timeline, in which most of the old European Empires are still intact, the Confederacy is on the verge of regaining its independence, and for whatever reason, the politicians in charge of the US government can never seem to learn from their mistakes, but in my own humble opinion this doesn't seem like a very plausible scenario, nor does it seem particularly entertaining.

How many Star Wars movies has there been in which the "Rebels" blow up yet another Death Star by shooting a torpedo down some sort of auxiliary chute? What? The engineers in charge of building the Death Star just can't seem to figure this one out? I think that allowing the Confederacy to rise again in the 191 universe would be just like blowing up another yet another Death Star. Yeah, some of the fans might like it, but in my opinion it just doesn't seem like something rationale people would do, and......we've seen it before.


In my opinion, I think that the US government is willing to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the Confederacy from rising again, including the mass-genocide via the use of biological weapons and napalm. Well, given the fact that the Confederacy has just attempted to murder all of its own blacks in death camps, I think that this would put genocide on the table, maybe not in the middle of the table, but it is a viable option the US would probably use if they felt that they could not reintegrate the Confederacy. (A few years ago I posted a short story in which US authorities engineer a famine in the occupied Confederacy in order to make the Confederate people more compliant. )

I guess that the American people living in my 1947 version of the 191 timeline hold somewhat different values than the people living in our OTL, or even the people living in the 191 timeline just a few years earlier. The American citizens living in my post war version of the 191 universes are willing to do anything to prevent another major war on their own soil, even if it means having to kill everyone living in the defeated Confederacy to do it. It is us or them, and the winner takes it all.

I think that after a few years of living under a extremely harsh occupation, most Confederates with any brains would realize that the United States is the only option, and that if they want to live like civilized human beings again, then they are going to have to become US citizens again. It is either join the US, continue to live in abject poverty, or attempt to move to Australia.

I was imagining a scene which takes place a few weeks after Patman visits Washington DC. President Dewey informs Patman that he has instructed various Florida politicians to hold a constitutional convention, and to create a new state constitution so that Florida can be readmitted. Patman is angry because most of the Floridians participating in the creation of the new constitution are Radical Liberals, and all of the rough drafts they have sent him thus far look they were written by Flora Hamburger herself, and in Dewey's opinion, they are totally unacceptable. President Dewey provides Patman with his own plane, and instructs him to make speeches in Florida in order to energize the old Whig Party, and to sell the Florida Whig leadership on the idea of becoming US Democrats. (Would you like to become a wealthy member of the US Democratic Party, or would you like a coffin?)

Well I hope that no one gets angry or upset over any of my ideas. this is supposed to be just for fun, and I'm probably going to post one or two more things, and that is about it. I have something regarding the Third Mexican Republic and the Repatriation of Sonora and Chihuahua, and also something regarding the 1945 battle of Jackson Mississippi in which Freedom Party extremists attempt to form a government, but are brutally put down after a week long battle, but after that I'll probably just take a break.

I imagine that Prince Edward Island would be a part of the US state of New Brunswick.
 
The mental image of the United States rebranding Prince Edward Island as "Roosevelt Island" almost as soon as the conquer it has suddenly occurred to me ...


Well I hope that no one gets angry or upset over any of my ideas.

Have no fear on that score - one does realise that this is only fiction and that it would be rather churlish to assume that the attitudes of a character reflects the attitudes of their writer! (having said that still finds it rather frightening to see the United States apply a "Join or Die" approach as a Superpower without rival on its Continent, as opposed to a mere band of Rebel Provinces - it is almost as worrying to see the United States governed by a President who sees the "Conscience of Congress" reflected in the draft of a State Constitution and think that a BAD Thing).

On the other hand the prospect of some Freedom Party "Werewolf" types (one thinks of them as "Moccasins" as a nod to the deadly water snake with an innocuous name: the First Nations associations also seem oddly appropriate, when applied to anti-USA Renegades) is not one that depresses me in the slightest ...

I'm also interested in seeing your ideas for the Third Mexican Republic! (I'd like to imagine that the Last Emperor of Mexico went into Exile without requiring a painful removal; the poor man appears to have been treated as a whipping boy whenever he's mentioned in the novels so it might be kind to let him go out with a little more dignity than one might have expected and, since he was forced into the Second Great War by Featherston, it might not actually be unjust to let him survive the process - shades of King Victor Emmanuel III).


I would be especially interested in an opportunity to read your thoughts on what "Radical Liberal" means when applied to a Confederate or ex-Confederate; the novels themselves would seem to indicate a fairly broad parish of anti-Administration types (basically anyone who dislikes the Whigs but still intends to beat them at their own game), but your reference to them would seem to indicate a more hard-edged and sharply-defined ideology.

I am always happy to see other ideas for the same topic when it comes to Alternate History, since one of the cornerstones of that genre is the idea that in another Timeline it COULD have happened that way! (and in all fairness your ideas CAN be better than mine).:)


I suppose that someone could create a late 1940s version of the 191 timeline, in which most of the old European Empires are still intact, the Confederacy is on the verge of regaining its independence, and for whatever reason, the politicians in charge of the US government can never seem to learn from their mistakes, but in my own humble opinion this doesn't seem like a very plausible scenario, nor does it seem particularly entertaining.

To clarify; the Confederate States is most certainly a dead letter in any version of Timeline 191 that involves a Featherston Administration & the consequences thereof - my mental image was of the United States applying the same treatment received by the former Dominion of Canada to the ex-Confederate States (with some being absorbed and the rest being split up into petty nations intended to function as satellites of the United States of America, which would be in an excellent position to exercise Hegemony thereafter).

I also definitely agree that the old European Empires are for the chopping board (in fact the idea of using an Austro-Hungarian Civil War/Revolution in the Dual Monarchy as an entr'acte for the Second Great War, rather than a Spanish Civil War, recently occurred to me).
 
The mental image of the United States rebranding Prince Edward Island as "Roosevelt Island" almost as soon as the conquer it has suddenly occurred to me ...

Roosevelt Island? I like the sound of that, and it seems exactly like something that real living breathing human beings would do in such a situation.

I was actually imagining a very nasty end for the last Mexican Emperor, similar to what happened to Mussolini in our timeline. Essentially, the emperor relies on an ever increasing cycle of repression to deal with his unhappy populace, and this just tends to drive everyone right in to the arms of the Mexican Republican movement.

The Republicans wear down the imperial troops defending Mexico City in early 1945, storm the palace, kill the emperor, and proclaim the leader of the Republican movement to be the President of Mexico all within a three day period. (No elections are actually held for sometime, however.)

The Dewey administration congratulates the new President of Mexico, and announces that Baja California will be returned to the people of Mexico. The return of Baja and the fact that the US has long supported the Republican movement make Dewey very popular in Mexico.

However, the Republicans ruling Mexico consider the Republic of Texas to be a rump state of the old Confederacy, and they are very hostile towards it. This partially stems from the fact that Confederate mercenaries working for the Emperor of Mexico committed years worth of atrocities against the Mexican people, and now the Mexican people are looking for revenge by taking things out on the Republic of Texas.

By 1948 the US realizes that it doesn't really want to hold onto Sonora and Chihuahua, so those to former CS states are returned to Mexico. Earlier, the Texas Expansionist Party had hoped to acquire Baja California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, but US is worried about creating a rival that may stab it in the back at some point in the future, so Sonora and Chihuahua are given back to Mexico instead.

The repatriation of Sonora and Chihuahua help to cement the Republic of Mexico has a long term loyal ally of the United States.


I haven't given too much thought to the Radical Liberal Party, other than the US Republican Party will probably try to swoop in and pick them up as each CS state is being readmitted back into the US. I think I remember once scene in which a Radical Liberal politician was giving a speech during the inter-war periods, and he was talking about the need of the CS to be more diplomatic towards the US....? Other than that I don't think that Turtledove described their platform very much..?

I am always happy to see other ideas for the same topic when it comes to Alternate History, since one of the cornerstones of that genre is the idea that in another Timeline it COULD have happened that way! (and in all fairness your ideas CAN be better than mine).:) *-*-*-* (trying to make smiley face) I think that I tend to focus on the big picture, while you focus more on the smaller details, but I think that we both have good ideas.
 
I was actually imagining a very nasty end for the last Mexican Emperor, similar to what happened to Mussolini in our timeline.

Well that is another extremely likely outcome of Mexican involvement with the Featherston Administration, though may I suggest granting His Imperial Majesty the mercy of a firing squad or the sake of a little mercy? (You might borrow inspiration from Maximilian of the Second Mexican Empire in Our Own timeline - who apparently died with considerable dignity, though one imagines a court-martial may be out of the question for Francisco Jose II).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_I_of_Mexico

^^"I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood, which is about to be shed, be shed for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!" are pretty amazing last words when you're about to be shot by a firing squad of Mexicans!^^


Roosevelt Island? I like the sound of that, and it seems exactly like something that real living breathing human beings would do in such a situation.

Especially when they're United States soldiers living out their American Revolution daydreams at the expense of yet another King George!
 
Well that is another extremely likely outcome of Mexican involvement with the Featherston Administration, though may I suggest granting His Imperial Majesty the mercy of a firing squad or the sake of a little mercy? (You might borrow inspiration from Maximilian of the Second Mexican Empire in Our Own timeline - who apparently died with considerable dignity, though one imagines a court-martial may be out of the question for Francisco Jose II).

If I change the manner in which Republicans troops storm the Imperial Palace and hang him and his mistress from a balcony, then I'm going to have to change a lot of other things down the road. Ugh!
 
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