Anglo-American War II

Though it can be said with reasonable assurance that these men helped shape modern America it can also be said that they were unscrupulous doing it. Workers were badly treated and striking was usually broken up with force. Unions were outlawed under the Taft administration, a law which Roosevelt upheld.

Roosevelt sided with the unions during his first term as president. Taft continued most of Roosevelt's domestic policies after Roosevelt left. Nether of them would be willing to outlaw unions.

To many in the American workforce it became clear that there was no justice in the capitalist system and many were disillusioned with their rights. Though the majority continued to support the elections process many were turned to the socialist camp with the outlawing of unions. Socialists would become a force to be reckoned with in the coming years.

And this is why Roosevelt sided with the unions. Theodore Roosevelt was at heart a Populist, and He realized that siding with the unions would destroy most of the Socialists propaganda.

In response to the assassination of President McKinley many Socialists take less extreme methods of demonstration to heart. They actively protest peacefully and attempt to use democratic methods to gain power. This brings them into conflict with many hardcore Marxists who believe revolution is the only way to power. This was the beginning of the quiet split of American Socialism.

President McKinley was assassinated by an Anarchist wannabe. I don't think it had much effect on American Socialists.

Republicans still had a majority on the vote as they had Roosevelt, America’s hero. Having stood up to the European powers and established good relations with their premier European ally Germany. Many on the Socialist or Democratic ticket however, resented Germany for having made the harsh statements that lead them to nearly the brink of war with Britain. This in no way hindered America’s support for Germany in the Great War however, as any dissent was drowned in the voice of popular demand. Many American volunteers even began to filter over to Germany in order to fight against their hated European enemies. They helped establish two divisions in the Kaisers armies (respectively known as the Kaisers American Rifles). These militaristic trends would be rather ominous in the years to come.

You do realize this means the Kaiser will win, right?
 
I'm gonna keep writing this as more of a "I'll just finish this" kind of thing. I'm going to attempt a more realistic TL in the near future.

but for now feel free to rip this TL a new one if you so please :p


American Reaction:
With the outbreak of war many Americans felt that it would be necessary for them to step up and fight in the name of their ally Germany. President Roosevelt however, saw the folly of immediately declaring war. Not only was he not an official member of the Central powers, his was a nation that had no direct border with the Entente powers (save Canada) and no direct way of aiding Germany. He increased trade with Germany but it became clear that this would prove a fruitless endeavor as by 1915 Britain had declared a national blockade of Germany which was taking a terrible toll. In the end any Americans who wanted to fight had to make their way individually across the Atlantic.

Supplies of American arms and equipment continued throughout the war despite the protests of the Entente.

Nonetheless many Americans had their own taste of war right at home. New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas were all suffering from vicious raids by Mexican bandits or irregular Mexican forces who engaged American forces in order to make a point of declaring their sovereignty. Border clashes between all sides of the combatants were common. One day an American unit might engage a communist group, next a unit of federal troops, and then bandits. The fighting on the Mexican side of the border was so confusing that many Americans had trouble even making sense of it at all.

For the regular resident living close to the border it became a risk to stay in one spot. Many towns’ people gathered what they could and moved northwards or closer to military camps. Ranchers who couldn’t move usually joined together in self defense. Some hired mercenaries to help guard their cattle and farms. Vigilantism became especially common in Texas where deputized citizens would sometimes make counter raids across the border and attack Mexican ranchers. [a]

The defining moment of the war is probably the raid on Columbus when the Mexican revolutionary hero Pancho Villa crossed the American border and raided the town of Columbus New Mexico. This is characterized as one of the bloodiest raids of the time. This is actually a fallacy as the bloodiest raid of the war was the Mexican communist attack on Douglas Arizona where Mexican communist raiders in perceived revenge for a) years of swindling at the hands of American merchants in the area, and b) the deaths of some of their fellows in previous raids, burned down and slaughtered the entire town. Three hundred souls died in this daring night attack. Sadly this did not make it to the history books as reporters mostly glossed over it since there was no significant military presence in the area at the time. (The main force comprised of a battalion of US infantry and militia were chasing a second smaller communist force which had stolen a herd of cattle, believed to be a diversion at the time). Villa’s raid prompted Roosevelt to action.
In March 1916 American forces were sent to Mexico in order to capture and punish the notorious outlaw. This was an amazing time for Americans as they pushed into a new military frontier.

Though before this the American military had been expanding. Before the Spanish-American War America’s army had been small. It now numbered around 500,000 men already. In 1917 15,000 men were active on the border with Mexico while 50,000 were garrisoned in the Philippines actively putting down the remaining Filipino insurgents there. America’s navy since the disastrous battle of Managua had been in an intense building program. Having entered the Naval Race with Germany they soon eclipsed their European partner and created a navy that had a quarter tonnage of the British Royal Navy, complete with six modern dreadnaught battleships and a seventh set to be complete in 1916.

American was still expanding as she tapped her vast natural resources and her growing supply of manpower. This expansion would make her a major player in the years to come.

[a] Cattle theft had still not died out even after the turn of the century.
Casualty figures vary wildly. Some say the death toll was as high as one thousand. Highly unlikely considering the town’s population was only several hundred at the time.
 
You do realize this means the Kaiser will win, right?

I think thats just to ASB. The British blockade was very complete in OTL and was weakening Germany well into the war by 1917 and the lack of popular support for the war was what brought its end in the first place. I'm certainly not changing the effectiveness of the British blockade in TTL.
 
I think thats just to ASB. The British blockade was very complete in OTL and was weakening Germany well into the war by 1917 and the lack of popular support for the war was what brought its end in the first place. I'm certainly not changing the effectiveness of the British blockade in TTL.

Its not just a matter of efficiency (which is compromised by a pro-German America), It's a matter of budget. The United Kingdom ran its coffers dry fighting the war, and would have gone bankrupted before 1916 if it hadn't managed to secure so many loans from American banks. And by 1917 it had run out of collateral for those loans. With a hostile America the U.K. will run out of the money needed to fight a war with the intensity of the western front.

Now with the matter of the blockades efficiency. It was so efficient because it prevented neutral powers from trading with neutral powers. In other words, the neutral USA could not trade with the neutral Netherlands, who would then trade with the Germans. Preventing neutral nations from trading with neutral nations was at the time a violation of that nations neutrality. Every American ship traveling to the Netherlands stopped by the British blockade is a casus belli. President Willson was willing to overlook such instances in OTL, which is why the British were able to create such an airtight blockade.
 
Not to mention that such a vehemately anti-British US is likely to actively assist Germany at some point, at least to the extent the Allies were assisted pre-1917.

I'm not sure the British are going absolutely broke, but their ability to raise money will be sorely hurt with American hostility or even apathy.

And of course, transferring merchant ships to the American flag so they won't be targeted by the u-boats won't work (even to the extent it did OTL), so starvation threatens.

Britain is in a worse situation than OTL. It should not do as well.
 
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