America's Silver Era, The Story of William Jennings Bryan

Really enjoying this! My only complaint is that it would be nice if the posts weren't in all-italics.

The idea is that they are excerpts from books, but I'll try to add more non-Itallic paragraphs in the future.

For me you were not, regardless, like the idea, but hate the spoiler. Would love if somehow the assasination of Roosevelt causes World War I or at least if his assasin would be a certain Leon Czolgosz.

What I meant to say was that I thought people would immediately know the really important thing that happens. And I was surprised when that didn't happen. It's not the assassination of Roosevelt. I won't comment on whether Roosevelt dies from an assassin's bullet or from natural causes, or whether he dies in office or out of it.
 
I won't comment on whether Roosevelt dies from an assassin's bullet or from natural causes, or whether he dies in office or out of it.

I assume he and Bryan merge into an SI:2 transapient, the Silver Moose, and turn America into the interstellar hyper power it was always meant to be?
 
I assume he and Bryan merge into an SI:2 transapient, the Silver Moose, and turn America into the interstellar hyper power it was always meant to be?

Maybe that could be a spinoff of this TL, but in the ASB section.

I wonder what Sun Yat-Sen is doing right now.

Representative from Guangdong Province. I'm a huge Sinophile and Sun Yat-sen is one of my favorite historical figures so he will show up more in this TL.

I'm glad that someone know the Jiang Jieshi reference.
 
What I meant to say was that I thought people would immediately know the really important thing that happens. And I was surprised when that didn't happen. It's not the assassination of Roosevelt. I won't comment on whether Roosevelt dies from an assassin's bullet or from natural causes, or whether he dies in office or out of it.
My automatic assumption is he'll survive office just fine then since again, most writers here wouldn't nut up to cutting TR down in his prime, just like how many can't help not make him president most of the time. I can happily buy him always being historically important as an adult, but not that.

But to get out of my nitpicking, I'm very much expecting a lot of growing pain for China given that democracy on a serious level is fairly novel and it's dealing with a nation that's still pretty heavy with corruption. About the best thing out of this bloodbath that happened is that China likely cut a decent chunk of dead wood out of their army due to death toll and civil strife, and have slowly gained some skill in fighting partisans.
 
My automatic assumption is he'll survive office just fine then since again, most writers here wouldn't nut up to cutting TR down in his prime, just like how many can't help not make him president most of the time. I can happily buy him always being historically important as an adult, but not that.

But to get out of my nitpicking, I'm very much expecting a lot of growing pain for China given that democracy on a serious level is fairly novel and it's dealing with a nation that's still pretty heavy with corruption. About the best thing out of this bloodbath that happened is that China likely cut a decent chunk of dead wood out of their army due to death toll and civil strife, and have slowly gained some skill in fighting partisans.

In my old TL I had TR die fighting the Spanish.

China's got some rough years ahead of it, make of that what you will.
 
Chapter XXI, The Tsar, the Sultan, and the Balkans
While Britain controlled the largest amount of land area at the turn of the 20th century, Russia by far had the largest contiguous land empire of the time. While Russia was counted among the great powers, there was much that separated it from the other European empires. It was neither Catholic nor Protestant, but Eastern Orthodox. It had considerably less access to ports that wouldn’t freeze over in the winter. It was an absolute monarchy in an age of liberalization. And from 1902 to 1915 it was largely isolated in the realm of international relations with the exception of France and some of the Balkan states. Britain feared Russian expansionism. Germany and Austria-Hungary saw their large neighbor as a threat. Japan also desired the same spheres of influence in East Asia, which had almost led to war. In fact, Russia had only narrowly averted a war against not only Japan, but also Britain and the Qing in East Asia.

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(Tsar Nicholas II)

Russia began to focus inward. It sought to build up its army and navy, continue industrialization, and countering dissent in its vast empire. An attempt on the Tsar’s life in 1908 left him increasingly paranoid. There was a massive crackdown on anti-tsarist groups, especially the far left. Communist agitator Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was hung in Moscow the next year after being convicted of having played a role in the assassination attempt. The Romanovs were determined to not allow revolution in their country. And they were successful in this endeavor, in the short term if not the long term. The inward focus of Russia would soon come to an end, as events to the South and West drew the empire’s attention.

The Ottoman Empire was experiencing unrest, especially among the non-Turks in the empire. In 1910, the Serbs rebelled and drew the Kingdom of Serbia, led by King Alexander I, into war with the Ottomans. While the rebels, aided by the Serbian Army, initially gained some ground, they were eventually pushed back into Serbia by Ottoman troops. Ottoman advances into Serbia were also repelled, and so the Ottoman Army decided to fortify the border. Russia sensed this as the perfect time to strike at the “Sick Man of Europe.” The government hoped that a war would inspire patriotism and unity as well. Thus on August 15, 1910, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. Fighting between the two countries began in the Black Sea and Eastern Anatolia. The Russian Black Sea Fleet had a clear advantage over its Ottoman counterparts. The early naval engagements were decisive.

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(Serbian King Alexander I)

On land, the war was not nearly as one-sided, though the Russians had the upper hand. The Russian advance was stopped by a smaller Ottoman force at Rize. The Ottomans were forced to transfer troops from Europe to Anatolia to deal with the Russian invasion. In response, the Serbians launched another offensive into Ottoman lands. Serbian forces were only able to capture small border towns, and the Balkan front remained a stalemate. In the Spring of 1911, Russia began a new offensive, and this time it was bringing more and better prepared troops. Rize fell in late March after naval bombardment and an all-out assault. Meanwhile, Britain, Germany, and the United States condemned Russian aggression against the Ottoman Empire. The Russian government realized that war with Germany was a distinct possibility and that Russia would not be prepared. Thus Russia entered into peace talks with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Sultan accepted a ceasefire with the Russian Empire.

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(Sultan Abdul Hamid II as a much younger man than he was during the War with Russia)

On April 19, Greece entered the war. Greek forces advanced quickly, gaining much ground from the Ottomans. At the same time, the Serbians broke through Ottoman defenses and were advancing again. They captured Pristina after fighting for two weeks on May 30. Ottoman forces retreated to Skopje, where they anticipated being attacked from both sides by Greeks and Serbs. The attack never came. Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II was desperate to end the war before even more territory was lost. An armistice was agreed to. The Treaty of Vienna ended the war. The Ottoman Empire was forced to give up land to Russia, Serbia, and Greece. The victory and annexation of parts of Western Anatolia is thought to have increased the Tsar’s popularity back home. There was also relief that what could have become a major international conflict had been averted.

-Except from The Dying Man of Europe, the Ottoman Empire in the 20th Century, Debora Nestani, Harvard Press, 2018.
 
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You have seemingly completely wrecked the normal timeline; Lenin dead and Russia jumping on the Ottomans (which might save the Turks long term, get them to libralize/modernize sooner and they keep Arabia). Though it sounds like Russia implodes anyways (unsurprising). Will there be a Great War?
 
With Lenin gone, I wonder how Stalin and Trotsky might develop, perhaps if the Russian Empire collapses or reforms significantly, Stalin or 'Koba' (considering if I remember correctly he never used Stalin until 1912) might join the post-imperial government since in OTL, Stalin supported the Provisional Government until Lenin told him not to.
 
So, Russia's better off right now, but you did say they'd still face revolution later on, so I can't wait to see what causes that, and what happens afterwards. Especially without Lenin around to guide things.
 
You have seemingly completely wrecked the normal timeline; Lenin dead and Russia jumping on the Ottomans (which might save the Turks long term, get them to libralize/modernize sooner and they keep Arabia). Though it sounds like Russia implodes anyways (unsurprising). Will there be a Great War?

There may or may not be a Great War, all I've established is that this particular war didn't become a world war.

With Lenin gone, I wonder how Stalin and Trotsky might develop, perhaps if the Russian Empire collapses or reforms significantly, Stalin or 'Koba' (considering if I remember correctly he never used Stalin until 1912) might join the post-imperial government since in OTL, Stalin supported the Provisional Government until Lenin told him not to.

Stalin and Trotsky will certainly show up later on.

So, Russia's better off right now, but you did say they'd still face revolution later on, so I can't wait to see what causes that, and what happens afterwards. Especially without Lenin around to guide things.

Glad that you are interested!
 
Chapter XXII, El Presidente de los Estados Unidos
Theodore Roosevelt entered his second term on March 4, 1913. He was only the third Republican to win a second term, the other two being Lincoln and Grant. There were a full four decades in between Grant’s second term and Roosevelt’s. To be fair, the Democratic Party was older yet only three Democrats had made the same achievement (Jackson, Cleveland, and Bryan). Many believed then, and many historians believe now, that Roosevelt was the only thing keeping the Republicans in power at this time in history. Republican leaders looked towards 1916 not with optimism, but anxiety. They knew that Leonard Wood didn’t have the same charisma that Roosevelt did. They began to suggest that he run for a third term.

-Excerpt from The Guide to the Executive Mansion, an in Depth Look at America's Presidents, by Benjamin Buckley, Harvard Press, 1999.

At the beginning of Roosevelt’s second term, Robert La Follette resigned from his position as Postmaster General. He did so in protest of Roosevelt’s hawkish foreign policy. He would later win a Senate seat. He remained very popular in his home state of Wisconsin, and the state legislature even passed an amendment requiring the state’s electoral votes to go to the winner of the popular vote. La Follette had hoped that the trend would spread to other states, but it didn’t. La Follette was replaced by former Tennessee Governor Henry Clay Evans. Secretary of the Navy Nelson Aldrich died in 1914 and was replaced by John Coit Spooner of Wisconsin. House Speaker Whitelaw Reid had died in 1912 and he was replaced by James Mann of Illinois.

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(James Robert Mann)

In 1914 Congress passed the 18th Amendment, which established women’s suffrage. It was the culmination of decades of activism going back to antebellum times. Unfortunately, high-profile activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony never lived to see it happen. The Amendment still had to be ratified by a sufficient number of state legislatures, and thus it would not apply to the 1914 midterms. Nonetheless, it was ratified in 1915 and would be in full force for the 1916 Presidential election. A proposed amendment to put free silver in the Constitution failed because it was seen as pointless. The new House Speaker also blocked a vote on a proposed amendment that would ban alcohol.

Roosevelt had the United States take a more active role in Latin America. He thought that Dewey had been foolish for allowing France and Britain to take most of the ownership of the Panama Canal. As a side note, America was not as greatly affected by the anti-Imperialist movement in Colombia during the 20s and 30s as the European powers were. The American military presence in Cuba doubled during the early 1910s. America also increasingly sought to influence the Cuban government. Thus resentment against the United States, which was rare during the Bryan and Dewey administration, grew exponentially during the Roosevelt administration.

Roosevelt decided that a second canal in Central America should be built. And thus began the Nicaragua affair, which was a disaster for multiple countries. Nicaraguan President José Santos Zelaya had entered into negotiations with Germany and Japan for building a canal through his country. He was also pursuing closer relations with Spain. This had been going on for almost a decade and little progress had been made. In 1914 Secretary of State Joseph Foraker made an offer to the Nicaraguan government for America to build a canal. President Zelaya considered the offer, and then determined that America’s terms were not generous enough. Meanwhile, he reopened negotiations with Japan and Germany. In 1913, he had agreed to allow a contingent of Japanese soldiers into the country to train the country’s military.

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(José Santos Zelaya)

The presence of Japanese soldiers, though they were small in number, gave confidence to Zelaya. Nicaragua was having troubles with its neighbors, particularly Honduras. Zelaya had been working behind the scenes to topple the conservative Honduran government led by Fransisco Bertrand and replace it with the liberal former president Policarpo Bonilla. On June 30, 1914, he ordered an invasion of Honduras. The Nicaraguans were aided by local anti-government forces. The United States responded by deploying troops to Honduras before Nicaraguan forces overran the country. In September American troops entered the besieged Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa and drove away the Nicaraguan attackers. Zelaya then attempted to get other Latin American nations join in his war that was now being portrayed as a fight against imperialism. Meanwhile, the Japanese sent more troops to Nicaragua. Zelaya was overjoyed at this news until he learned that they came to force him to enter into peace talks.

Japan wanted the war to end in a status-quo antebellum. Until peace was signed they would help resist any invasion into Nicaraguan territory, however. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Foraker both condemned the Japanese presence on the Americas as a violation of the Monroe doctrine. The Japanese claimed that the Monroe Doctrine only applied to Europe and then criticized the US for expanding its influence in the Philippines (by this time the Philippine government was firmly pro-American and was subjecting Japanese businesses to regulations it never enforced on American companies). Japan would not back down and war seemed likely. But in the end both sides agreed to a compromise. Japan would be allowed to keep no more than one thousand soldiers in Nicaragua, and that Nicaragua would be the only American nation Japan could station soldiers in. American businesses would still be allowed to operate in the country. Nicaragua was forced to pay light reparations to Honduras. Peace was agreed to by December as no one wanted this crisis to spiral into a larger war.


-Excerpt from Blood for Bananas, US Policy in Latin America, Alfred Andreas, Harvard Press, 2018.

Nicaragua became a puppet state of Japan, and Japanese businesses increasingly invested in the country. Honduras was already almost entirely controlled by American fruit companies, but after 1914 America established a military presence on the island, beginning with a naval base at La Ceiba. The American government under Roosevelt, and many of his successors, was determined to protect American business interests in the region. On May 5, 1915 Nicaragua signed a contract to build a canal and give 50% ownership to Japan, 30% to Germany, 10% to Nicaragua, and 10% to other nations. The Canal construction was postponed indefinitely shortly afterwards. The day after the contract was signed, an event occurred halfway across the world in a town on China’s Hainan island. And it was something the world was not prepared for.
 
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No Prohibition? Well, guess the mob isn't going to grow as strong ITTL.

Giving Japan a foothold in Central America is an interesting choice.

Er, "a town on China's island"? Which island? I'm pretty sure China has a lot of them.
 
No Prohibition? Well, guess the mob isn't going to grow as strong ITTL.

Giving Japan a foothold in Central America is an interesting choice.

Er, "a town on China's island"? Which island? I'm pretty sure China has a lot of them.

Hainan Island, apparently I forgot to put that in.

No Prohibition as long as Mann is House Speaker. The temperance movement is still strong and isn't going to give up easily.
 
an event occurred halfway across the world in a town on China’s Hainan island. And it was something the world was not prepared for.​
A Chinese Sarajevo? I really couldn't see this coming.
Also, as I understand the Ottomans still managed to hold onto Macedonia and Albania, while Salonica was ceded to Greece per OTL, right?​
 
Theodore Roosevelt entered his second term on March 4, 1913. He was only the third Republican to win a second term, the other two being Lincoln and Grant. There were a full four decades in between Grant’s second term and Roosevelt’s. To be fair, the Democratic Party was older yet only three Democrats had made the same achievement (Jackson, Cleveland, and Bryan). Many believed then, and many historians believe now, that Roosevelt was the only thing keeping the Republicans in power at this time in history. Republican leaders looked towards 1916 not with optimism, but anxiety. They knew that Leonard Wood didn’t have the same charisma that Roosevelt did. They began to suggest that he run for a third term.

Need Charles Evans Hughes.
 
A Chinese Sarajevo? I really couldn't see this coming.
Also, as I understand the Ottomans still managed to hold onto Macedonia and Albania, while Salonica was ceded to Greece per OTL, right?​

Yes. I'm not very good with maps but I'll try to put something together.

Need Charles Evans Hughes.

He's the Attorney General right now, and he isn't going to die any time soon, so he definitely has a political future.
 
Chapter XXIII, Aichow
Though upstart nations like the United States and Japan were certainly influential nations and formidable opponents in war, the center of power in the early 20th century was Europe. The first-rate European powers were Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. Second-rate empires included nations such as the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Portugal. If one was being very generous Spain could fit into this category. And then there were the third-rate empires like Belgium and the Netherlands. The other nations of Europe couldn’t really be considered empires. Europe was in a sort of uneasy peace in which there were tensions between nations but none of the Great powers had gone to war with each other in decades. Nevertheless, two major alliances emerged in the late 19th century. One was the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. The other was the Triple Entente consisting of Britain, France, and Russia.

-Excerpt from Europe's Golden Age, Alice Davis, Oxford, 1990.

Europe in the years from 1900-1915 saw continuing industrialization, with nations like Russia trying desperately to catch up with Western Europe. These years also saw European nations finish carving up almost the entirety of the African continent. The only independent nations left on the continent were Morocco, Abyssinia, Liberia, and the white-dominated Boer Republics. Europeans expanded their power elsewhere, too. British and French companies (with minor American help) built a canal in Panama in 1905, allowing for ships to avoid sailing around South America. The Great Powers, as well as the smaller ones, were engaged in an arms race to see who could get the best ships and the best guns first. To the average observer in 1915, it seemed like power would stay concentrated in Europe forever.

There was also the rise of political ideologies, particularly those on the left. Socialism’s popularity was rising in those years. Russia responded by infiltrating radical leftist organizations and making examples of many of their leaders. Others allowed them to participate in elections and hoped that they would remain on the fringes of political opinion or moderate their positions. Such was the case with many Social Democratic movements in countries like Germany or Britain. One of the rising stars of Socialism was Adolphe Cartier, an author from French Guyana who spent several years in America before moving to Paris. He wrote scathingly of the American political system after he volunteered for the 1904 Eugene Debs campaign. He soon became a member of the chamber of deputies and helped popularize the far-left in France. He and his almost cult-like supporters were fierce critics of what they perceived as the increasing aggressiveness of the French government.

The odd man out in Western Europe was Spain, which had been forced to come to terms with the fact that its days in power were over after the Cuban War and the subsequent disastrous Dos Equis Movement. And while one may think that the Dos Equis Movement was only a disaster for Spain, it had one unintended consequence that shook the whole world. During the Qing Civil War, Spain bought itself a concession port on Hainan Island called Aichow. However, France believed that Aichow belonged in its own sphere of influence and was furious over the situation. In 1915, France decided that it had enough and on May 6, 1915 French ships blockaded the Spanish concession port. The French government was convinced that Spain would give up the port. Instead, Spain refused and ordered the French ships to lift the blockade, which it declared an act of war. Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas gave the French Navy 24 hours to leave the port of Aichow. French President Paul Doumer was unfazed by Spanish threats and did not yield. On May 7th, Spanish artillery fired upon the French ships. French ships responded by bombarding the Spanish positions.

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(Edgar Quinet, one of the French ships present at the blockade of Aichow)

The next day, May 8th, France and Spain declared War on each other. Cuba declared war on Spain on the 9th, hoping to liberate Puerto Rico with French help. Most of the early fighting was on water, as neither side had mobilized yet. France had the clear advantage. It looked like it would be a swift and decisive French victory. However, Spain had entered into a secret alliance with Germany a decade earlier. Germany began mobilization, but waited until May 15, 1915 to declare war on France. On the 16th, Russia declared war on Germany and then Austria-Hungary declared war on both Russia and France. Italy remained neutral despite being part of the Triple Alliance. At first it looked like Britain would stay out of the war as well. However, after Belgium refused to allow German troops to travel through it to invade France, Germany invaded Belgium on May 20th. Britain was bound by treaty to protect Belgian neutrality and thus Britain declared war on Germany on the 21st. By early June, France, Britain, Russia, Belgium, and Cuba were at war with every nation of the opposing alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Spain. Europe was at war.
 
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