Alternate WW1 alliances Timeline, assistance

Lawrence of Sahara

I just had a neat little Idea for my Timeline. In the Great war of OTL there was Thomas Edward Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. He was used as a british ajent in the middle east to spark an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
Since in this timeline the Ottoman Empire is on the British side, it is not such a good Idea to send him there. So I got the title 'Lawrence of Sahara' in my head. He would be on a relatively similar mission, spark an Arab revolt, disguised as a message of Jihadic Liberation. He could go through the Sahara and spark revolts in French west Africa, as well as Libya to give the Italians a hard time.

How does this sound?
 
The Pacific War

How might fighting in the Pacific go? Would the U.S. employ an Island hopping strategy like in ww2 or would some other strategy be used?
 
How might fighting in the Pacific go? Would the U.S. employ an Island hopping strategy like in ww2 or would some other strategy be used?

I don't see the US fighting a two front war ITTL. They'd either assist in Europe or go against Japan. Can't see them doing both.
 
I suppose one needs to look at the background to the US response to Panama, not so much the background to events there as to whether the US had built-in imperatives which would have driven McKinley to intervene, or whether it required TR's driving force, and if so whether as VP and successor-designate he would have had that power anyway

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Quick Wiki-splodge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nelson_Cromwell

in 1898 the chief of the French Canal Syndicate (a group that owned large swathes of land across Panama), Philippe Bunau Varilla, hired him to lobby the US Congress to build a canal across Panama, and not across Nicaragua, as logic and reason would have it.
In 1902, after having run into a 10-cent Nicaraguan postal stamp[citation needed] produced in the US by the American Bank Note Company erroneously[citation needed] depicting a fuming Momotambo volcano (which was nearly dormant and lay more than 100 miles from the proposed Nicaraguan canal path), and taking advantage of a particularly volcanic year[citation needed] in the Caribbean, he planted[citation needed] a story in the New York Sun reporting that the Momotambo volcano had erupted and caused a series of seismic shocks. He thereafter sent leaflets with the above stamps pasted on them to all Senators as witness to the volcanic activity in Nicaragua.[citation needed]
On June 19, 1902, three days after senators received the stamps, they voted for the Panama route for the canal. For his lobbying efforts, he received the sum of $800,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Bunau_Varilla

After the Panama Canal Company went bankrupt in 1888 amidst charges of fraud, Bunau-Varilla was left stranded in Panama. He began the difficult search for a new opportunity for canal construction. When the New Panama Canal Company sprang up back in his native France, Bunau-Varilla sailed home, having purchased a large amount of stock. However, as de Lesseps' company had before, the New Panama Canal Company soon abandoned efforts to build the canal, selling the land in Panama to the United States, in hopes that the company would not fail entirely. The U.S. President then was Grover Cleveland, an anti-imperialist who avoided the canal issue. With the ascension of a more opportunistic leader, Theodore Roosevelt, canal planning resumed in the United States.

Bunau-Varilla, as vociferous as ever, incessantly promoted the construction of the canal. With aid from the New Panama Canal Company's New York attorney, William Nelson Cromwell, he eventually persuaded the government to select Panama as the canal site, as opposed to the popular alternative - Nicaragua. (When opponents voiced their interest in constructing a canal through Nicaragua, which was a less politically volatile nation, Bunau-Varilla actively campaigned throughout the Northeast, carrying pictures and postage stamps of Nicaragua's Mt. Momotombo spewing ash and lava over the proposed route.) Through extensive lobbying of businessmen, government officials, and the American public, Bunau-Varilla successfully convinced the U.S. Senate to appropriate $40 million to the New Panama Canal Company in the form of the Spooner Act of 1902.

Although his company was now in possession of a vast sum of money with which to build the canal, there still remained the issue of Colombian governmental cooperation. When a treaty between the South American power and the United States fell apart in the Senate, Bunau-Varilla began drawing up war plans with Panamanian juntas in New York. By the eve of the war for Panamanian independence, the wily French engineer had already drafted the isthmian nation's constitution, flag, and military establishment, and promised to float the entire government on his own checkbook. Although prepared for a small-scale civil war, Bunau-Varilla was relieved that the affair amounted to little more than the incidental killing of a Chinese civilian and the death of a donkey. As promised, President Roosevelt, on the conjectured day of battle, interposed a U.S. naval fleet between the Colombian forces south of the isthmus and Panamanian separatists.
Bunau-Varilla, as Panama's Ambassador to the United States invested with plenipotentiary powers by President Amador, later entered into negotiatiations without formal consent of the Government of Panama with the American Secretary of State John Hay, establishing the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave control of the Panama Canal to the U.S.. No Panamanians signed the treaty although Bunau-Varilla was present as the diplomatic representative of Panama (a role he had purchased through financial assistance to the rebels), despite the fact he had not lived in Panama for seventeen years before the incident, and he never returned

http://www.answers.com/topic/panama-canal-purchase-act-1902


The location of the new canal was the second obstacle to the passage of a canal act. The recommendations of the Walker Commission, appointed by President William McKinley in 1899 to report on the best trans-isthmus route, were to build the canal through Nicaragua, rather then Panama. This route was closer to the United States and less expensive. Following these recommendations, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Hepburn Bill (named after Representative William Hepburn of Iowa), which called for construction of a Nicaraguan canal. But passage of that bill led the owners of the French New Panama Canal Company, most notably Philippe Bunau-Varilla, the majority shareholder, to lower their sale price from $109 million to $40 million, making the Panama route more attractive in terms of both length and cost. With Republican Party support, as well as the successful tactic of playing up volcanic activity in the Nicaraguan canal route, Bunau-Varilla was able to ensure the passage of an amendment (known as the Spooner Amendment after Senator John Spooner of Wisconsin) to the Hepburn Bill on June 28, 1902, authorizing President Theodore Roosevelt to purchase the company's rights for $40 million and negotiate with Colombia over land cession.
The purchase of the New Panama Canal Company was quickly undertaken. The Colombian government, however, having just emerged from a civil war, was less flexible. The Colombians, fearing political damage and the potential loss of their northernmost province, hoped to use their reluctance as a financial bargaining chip. In January 1903 the Colombian minister in Washington agreed to the Hay-Herrán Treaty, which would allow the ceded land to be sold to the United States for $10 million, plus an annuity (a yearly payment). But in Colombia the treaty was a politically sensitive issue. When U.S. communications appearing to bully the Colombian government were revealed in 1903, the Colombian lower house unanimously rejected the treaty.
Under the terms of the Spooner Amendment, this setback suggested the canal would now be built in Nicaragua. But President Roosevelt, Bunau-Varilla, and a group of Panamanian nationalists were insistent on the Panama route. The U.S. Navy was sent to Panama to prevent arrival of Colombian troops, and the United States declared and recognized Panamanian independence in early November

I realise people probably already know this, since its an American history item and presumably taught in US schools, but its the first time I've looked in detail at this.

It seems there are a number of alternatives here, including abandoning the Panama option as unworkable and reverting to the Nicaragua one, and waiting for the Colombians to come around and negotiate a new treaty that WOULD then be ratified sometime further down the line.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I realise people probably already know this, since its an American history item and presumably taught in US schools, but its the first time I've looked in detail at this.
Actually, it's not taught in US schools (the Walker Commission and the possibility of a Nicaraguan Canal rarely appear even in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes). This is part of the American effort to compete with the British Education System in terms of world-class suckage.
 
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