Hello, I’ve been a frequent lurker on this site, and I have always been astonished at the level of thought and commitment you all put into your TL’s. While reading many timelines, I felt embarrassed being the guy always reading through without making significant contributions to AH.com. That's why I decided to make my own TL: America’s Champ.
The POD in America’s Champ is when Colonel Edward House fails to persuade William Jennings Bryan to support Woodrow Wilson during the 1912 Democratic national convention. This results in House Speaker Champ Clark winning the nomination and subsequently the election.
This timeline will be written in the history textbook format and each update will show one section of a textbook chapter as well as Wikipedia infoboxes in order to facilitate understanding for visual learners.
The first section of the textbook is practically the same as OTL; I will post it in this thread so it doesn’t look like I started the TL in the middle of a chapter. The world will diverge in Section 2. Section 1 will be posted tomorrow (4/1/2019).
I plan on posting an update once a week unless something comes up in RL. If so, the update will come the following week. Sorry, but things come up in RL for me pretty frequently due to schoolwork.
If anyone is an expert in World War I military history and is interested in contributing to a TL, you are encouraged to PM me.
I hope you will enjoy reading America’s Champ and any criticisms, nitpicks, questions, and suggestions are always welcome.
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United States History
First Edition
Matt Grunwald
Stanford University
Published by Speer-Perez Education
8706 South Garfield Ave.
Burnaby, CD
speer-perez.edu.us
© 2019, Speer-Perez Education Inc. All Rights Reserved.
View attachment 450707 Made in the United States of America
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***Chapters 1-9 Not Included***
You forgot Japan.The Allied Powers consisted of Serbia, Russia, Britain, France, and Italy
*laughs nervously*You forgot Japan.
Oh.Fixed!
Don't forget efforts to "civilize" the colonies (read: ram French culture down the throats of the locals) being ratcheted up in France's remaining colonies as well.Expect some degree of far-right regime taking over France, and that means antisemitism because of the historical confluence between far-right and antisemitic sentiments in French politics. Probably not a French version of the Holocaust without the sheer critical mass of insanity that the Nazis represented OTL, but there will be pogroms, and the Romani will take it up the ass, too.
Unlikely at this point that German propaganda intended for foreign audiences would be heavily antisemitic; internal right-wing propaganda, as typical for a European power, would be, but propaganda intended for German-Americans and American congresscritters would be more likely to focus on the "valor of Germany's sons fighting for their homeland", the "nobility of the daughters of the fatherland who sacrifice for their nation", and the "savagery of the Entente brutes as they beat and starved the noble patriots who were captured in the battle of the Marne". The purpose is to inspire sympathy for the cause and pressure people to support the propagandizing nation in their own nation, not to whip up internal support by alleging that "the other people are out to get us".German propaganda centered on Russian and Franco-British imperialism with doses of antisemitism.
No shit, lol.British propaganda did not appeal to immigrant Americans who were of German or Irish descent.
This seems pretty flimsy, unless either Clark was already Anglophobic or the British ambassador heavily implied that American ships would be unsafe if they tried to get to German ports.At first, Clark was reluctant but a day after the negotiations, the British ambassador promised safe passage for American ships as long as they arrived only at Allied ports.
If France has colonies after the Germans leading the "peace talks" in Paris get done with them.Don't forget efforts to "civilize" the colonies (read: ram French culture down the throats of the locals) being ratcheted up in France's remaining colonies as well.
Not really--when Kaiser Bill signed off on USW in the Atlantic, we were going to kick his ass somehow.Yeah, I know its a bit too far of a stretch. OTL America's involvement can be considered a bit of a stretch too in some ways.
I'm not hugely familiar with the 6-year-term proposal, but I doubt that such a massive and visibly unnecessary modification to the Constitution would go through in a time of relative peace and prosperity domestically. I can see there being significant support in the Gilded Age Congress, though--at this time the Presidency was historically weak (TR was an exception) and Congress was clawing for more power at every opportunity. Kind of the reverse of the current situation post-War Powers and PATRIOT Acts.The British ambassador did imply that heavily. Clark at this time wasn’t Anglophobic per se but he did have some anti-British sentiment. He found the threats from the Brits and the support from the Germans as a clear opportunity to fulfill his dream of annexing Canada. He’s pretty much doing whatever he wants to do as he's confident that the six-year term proposal will come into force.
"Legendary"? Oh boy. Thanks for the compliment, lol.Oh, I'm quite honored to see that the guy behind the legendary Trump SI is watching this TL. Thanks!
I'm not hugely familiar with the 6-year-term proposal, but I doubt that such a massive and visibly unnecessary modification to the Constitution would go through in a time of relative peace and prosperity domestically.
Problem is, POTUS would naturally push against it as a usurpation of his powers. And I doubt that Clark would be much different. Keep in mind, Wilson wasn't a huge fan of the imperial Presidency when it was a Republican in power.Well it did get through the Senate, though with only one vote to spare (47-23).
There was only one Democratic vote against (Senator Shively of Indiana) while the Republicans were almost evenly split (22 Nay, 19 Yea). Since the Senate in Feb 1913 was still Republican, whereas the HoR was very heavily Democratic, passage in the latter would seem assured had it come to a vote there.
After that its a question of ratification. However, only two Amendments (out of eleven) in the 20C failed of ratification after having been passed by Congress, and both of these (the 1920s Child Labor Amendment and the 1970s Equal Rights Amendment) failed largely because of opposition in the South, which would seem unlikely in this case as only one Southern Senator (a Tennessee Republican appointed to a vacancy) voted nay. So most likely it succeeds.
Problem is, POTUS would naturally push against it as a usurpation of his powers. And I doubt that Clark would be much different. Keep in mind, Wilson wasn't a huge fan of the imperial Presidency when it was a Republican in power.
I still find it kind of doubtful and doubt that any President would willingly accept such an amendment--though we saw Congress hand away power at least twice in the later 20th century OTL, so it's possible at least.