After the unification of germany, despite the large amount of german-americans, US politicians weren't a fan of theirs even before ww1- annoyances with Germany attitudes in the pacific and especially around latin america such as the caribbean and venezuela. So the goal is simple: make american politicians favor the kaiserreich and the Central Powers over the Entente with a PoD after German unification but before 1913. What happens? Does America limit her trade with the entente in favor of China and other neutral powers while Germany is more cordial to Washington's interests, letting the kaiser win ww1? Or does nothing change and Willy drags america into the war and spell his own doom?
AHC: Make American Foreign Policy Favor The Central Powers
- Thread starter AltoRegnant
- Start date
I think the best hope for this may have been an early end to Teddy Roosevelt's political career - either a combat or disease death in the S-A war, or due to some other affliction ( he had a couple to choose from), or a "sidelining" due to political factors (no Szolgosz assassination of McKinley or some other reason). TR (and, in later years, TR Jr) were ardent Anglophiles, and I think the TR Presidency pretty much marked the "point of no return" as to which way the US would lean once August 1914 rolled around.
IIRC, German-Americans, with their strength mainly in the upper Midwest, leaned very heavily Republican prior to TR, but were not really a unified bloc after, and especially after the rather confused election of 1912. A different US presidential electoral history prior to and including 1916 could've changed matters greatly, especially if most German-Americans and Irish-Americans could be gathered together under the banner of one (winning) political party or the other...
IIRC, German-Americans, with their strength mainly in the upper Midwest, leaned very heavily Republican prior to TR, but were not really a unified bloc after, and especially after the rather confused election of 1912. A different US presidential electoral history prior to and including 1916 could've changed matters greatly, especially if most German-Americans and Irish-Americans could be gathered together under the banner of one (winning) political party or the other...
Have House Speaker Champ Clark win the 1912 Democratic nomination, and then the presidency. He inadvertently sabotaged a treaty with Canada in 1911 by arguing that it would lead to US annexation, and he opposed entry into the war even after the Zimmerman note. Not sure how much Congress would let him get away with doing, and he probably wouldn't involve the US on the CP's side without butterflies leading to a ton of Entente miscalculations, but he could try threatening sanctions unless the UK stopped violating the 1909 declaration of London by applying the continuous voyage principle to neutrals and the addition of food to the list of war contraband, to name some specific issues. Throw in something like Admiral Essen's proposed raid on Sweden and Clark could have even more domestic political capital to work with.
Also, anything that keeps that infernal meddling Klansman out of the White House, or limits him to being a one-term president, gets bonus points as far as I'm concerned 