AHC: Balkanize the United States during WW1

Zurirach Adankar

I need a POD to balkanize the USA during World War 1.
I want to create some alternate twenties and thirties. My idea is that World War I ended with a bloody stalemate.
After that, the weakened European powers are in constant chaos. I want to concentrate on Europe but I need some plausible chaos in the United States.
I search a POD to create syndicalistic northern states and a communist CSA between 1900 and 1940.
These countries need not to be stable, because I like chaos.
It would be nice if some states could break away or if the old government could survive in some states.

I hope that this is not impossible.
 
Techdread

Techdread

The nearest that I could think of is 'Crimson Skies' and its backstory, but that's a post-WWI POD rather than during it.

You'd probably need a pre-1900 POD to create a United States so fragile that it calls apart within the first two decades of the 20th century.
 

Legofan4

The only time the US could have balkanized during the 20th in OTL i think is during the deepest part of the Depression but that hasnt happen yet and the US is making money hand over fist from selling to the Europeans and doesn't really have any major domestic issues during WW1.
 

jahenders

Banned
Very hard to come up with anything plausible with a POD after 1865. The most likely candidates for US balkanization are the 1780s (with no constitution) and the 1860s (North loses, South fragments, etc).
 

riggerrob

A schism during the Great Depression makes the most sense. With the Dust Bowl creating a power vacuum in the middle of the country, it would be easy to lose communications between the east and west coasts.
Also consider that if global cotton prices collapsed, commodity farming along the Mississippi would collapse. Hundreds of thousand of starving farm labourers would strip any train that tried to cross the Mid-West. Also consider that 1930-vintage airplanes were comparatively short-ranged and could not fly across the Mid-West without landing to re-fuel.

As for a North-South split, consider that a few border states (Kentucky and West Virginia) would change sides depending upon which way the wind blows. Borderline states would not so much be at war as dominated by criminal gangs that "helped themselves" to any goods left laying about after the last gang withdrew.
 

von kressenstein

Banned
Maybe have race relations sour during that period as well...


During ww1.. Have the USA harder on segregation and race...
Have central powers win.. USA looses butt loads of money

Uhm.. Depression.. Bad relations.. Dust bowl.. Us doesn't enter the naval treaty the us plays nice with Germany.. No fdr or only 1 term...
So more fasist government .. More reason for people to not be quite..
 

Legofan4

von kressenstein said:
Maybe have race relations sour during that period as well...


During ww1.. Have the USA harder on segregation and race...
Have central powers win.. USA looses butt loads of money

Uhm.. Depression.. Bad relations.. Dust bowl.. Us doesn't enter the naval treaty the us plays nice with Germany.. No fdr or only 1 term...
So more fasist government .. More reason for people to not be quite..
Click to expand...

Why would they stay with a losing side the US was not guaranteed to join the French and British they could have just stayed neutral. Until the US actually joined the war all loans provided to the British and French were secured with collateral so the money loss would have been minimal.
 

irishparadox

The only idea that jumps to mind is to make the Panic of 1907 way, way worse, to the point where radical sectarianism is boiling just under the surface. That could make WWI the straw that breaks the camel's back. I can't envision a POD in 1914 or later that could do as much damage as the OP proposes.
 

Emperor Julian

Even if the US is devastated by economic depression that leads to a civil war, the sense of national identity is too strong for the US to "Balkanize" in the 20th Century. The US would keep fighting until one side united most of the country.

EDIT: A two way, or even three-way political division like Germany or Korea or Vietnam might be doable, if foreign powers were divided in who they supported like in those cases
 

von kressenstein

Banned
Legofan4 said:
Why would they stay with a losing side the US was not guaranteed to join the French and British they could have just stayed neutral. Until the US actually joined the war all loans provided to the British and French were secured with collateral so the money loss would have been minimal.
Click to expand...

say the loans wernt secured . say the American government decided well the brits and French are loosing... lets take Canada.. this causes a split in the USA... I don't know.. I was just making crap up off the top of my head trying to think like an imperialist that would some how piss off the American constituent states enough to balkanize them.. so short of someone in dc DECLARING him self god emperor and going all palpatine .. im running out of ideas..

maybe a more violent reconstruction with the north being much more vengeful on the south .. this leads to a north south split that could by ww1 cause a difference of opinion in the states..

really the best way ... and you would have to avoid Roosevelt.. would be to have the depression much worse.. and an utter failure of capitalism to the point that even the rich are no longer making money.. the federal government turns authoritarian in the name of the children and what is good for the people... combine that with race relations and a south not recovered from a harsher end to the civil war.. maybe get a somewhat not so obvious rigged election or a questionable assassination of say Roosevelt that turns out to be an inside job.. maybe something like the maine but a big blunder and it turns out the feds are a lying stinking bag of murderers who use a flase flag event to solidify power..

I got not much else :)
 

Alstein

jahenders said:
Very hard to come up with anything plausible with a POD after 1865. The most likely candidates for US balkanization are the 1780s (with no constitution) and the 1860s (North loses, South fragments, etc).
Click to expand...

1830s perhaps. If Civil War starts earlier South has more of a chance.
 
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