Cinco de Mayo

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SWS

SWS

This is terrific military history so far. Another observer either than Rommel may be J.F.C. Fuller, who ingratiates himself within the Confederate Army as a more ideological Col. Fremantle. Certainly he can develop the Nine Principles by studying Plan HHH.

To further the cause of irony, Tuskegee may develop as a center for Confederate aircraft production.
 

Ran

That's a strong start -- it's going to be a rough time for anyone not white under Confederate occupation. 😟

PresidentZinn said:
Another question with respect to territorial changes- Could the U.S. take parts of Baja California from Mexico? As well, if Kentucky is sufficiently destroyed- could we see mass black resettlement there? Would be interesting to see a new state carved out and annexed into the Union. Maybe the state of Franklin or something to that effect.
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I'm kind of low-key hoping for something like ... US takes parts/all of Baja Cali, Mexico takes/garrisons after the Block Sud takes the Nicaragua canal, then they swap (return Baja to Mexico, Nicaragua back to being independent/US-aligned) when Mexico signs a separate peace...

...and flash forward to the modern day, disappointed "what if we didn't trade that useless desert in exchange for annexing Nicaragua?" takes (and Baja Californains annoyed at said takes) become a popular trope in Mexican AH, despite that never actually having been on the table.
 

Darth_Kiryan

SWS said:
This is terrific military history so far. Another observer either than Rommel may be J.F.C. Fuller, who ingratiates himself within the Confederate Army as a more ideological Col. Fremantle. Certainly he can develop the Nine Principles by studying Plan HHH.

To further the cause of irony, Tuskegee may develop as a center for Confederate aircraft production.
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Basil Liddel-Hart is 18 years old now in 1913. lol.

This does bring up a good point now in terms of how far @KingSweden24 and butterflies of still having the same OTL people born appear in this ATL. and who would the Military Observers for each side...
 

KingSweden24

Curtain Jerker said:
Wonderful updates to read while waiting to get off a plane. Keep up the good work!
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Thank you!
SWS said:
This is terrific military history so far. Another observer either than Rommel may be J.F.C. Fuller, who ingratiates himself within the Confederate Army as a more ideological Col. Fremantle. Certainly he can develop the Nine Principles by studying Plan HHH.

To further the cause of irony, Tuskegee may develop as a center for Confederate aircraft production.
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Thanks! Fuller definitely would wind up at the CSA lines, wouldn’t he?

Thats… darkly hilarious, I like that haha
Ran said:
That's a strong start -- it's going to be a rough time for anyone not white under Confederate occupation. 😟


I'm kind of low-key hoping for something like ... US takes parts/all of Baja Cali, Mexico takes/garrisons after the Block Sud takes the Nicaragua canal, then they swap (return Baja to Mexico, Nicaragua back to being independent/US-aligned) when Mexico signs a separate peace...

...and flash forward to the modern day, disappointed "what if we didn't trade that useless desert in exchange for annexing Nicaragua?" takes (and Baja Californains annoyed at said takes) become a popular trope in Mexican AH, despite that never actually having been on the table.
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We’re gonna cover this in a moment but yeah, Washington had a pretty big Black population even back then…

That’s a fun idea. We’ll be cutting to Nicaragua shortly!
 
SWS

SWS

Ran said:
That's a strong start -- it's going to be a rough time for anyone not white under Confederate occupation. 😟


I'm kind of low-key hoping for something like ... US takes parts/all of Baja Cali, Mexico takes/garrisons after the Block Sud takes the Nicaragua canal, then they swap (return Baja to Mexico, Nicaragua back to being independent/US-aligned) when Mexico signs a separate peace...

...and flash forward to the modern day, disappointed "what if we didn't trade that useless desert in exchange for annexing Nicaragua?" takes (and Baja Californains annoyed at said takes) become a popular trope in Mexican AH, despite that never actually having been on the table.
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I wonder if U.S. military infrastructure in Southern California descends into chaos as a result of the June 1915 Imperial Valley earthquakes...
 

Darth_Kiryan

Hmmm. One thing about this is guessing who is a Confederate General vs a United States General in this ATL, , especially from those who fought together in WW1

We know Pershing is Northern.
So is Leonard Wood - although, a lot of his career OTL was because of his relationship with Teddy Roosevelt, so it does make me wonder how his career has gone in this ATL
Tasker Bliss

Robert Lee Bullard is in the South.
James F Bell.
Beaumont Bonaparte Buck - now that is an awesome southern Name. :p
Henry Pinckney McCain - was US Army Adjutant General in OTL 1914-1918....wonder if has a similar confederate posting in this ATL?
 
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DanMcCollum

DanMcCollum

SWS said:
I wonder if U.S. military infrastructure in Southern California descends into chaos as a result of the June 1915 Imperial Valley earthquakes...
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God, we are finding EVERY major weather event and natural disaster during this time. LOL. I'm suddenly imagining a poem about the war stating that the Earth itself violently reacted to the conflict.

I'm actually interested in seeing what good war poets come out of this, on both sides. Because me thinks that there is going to be more than a few, and I'd love to see their influence. I wonder if there will be a good Union or Confederate standin for Wilfred Owen. Faulkner will definitely be of just the right age to serve in the war (though possibly not it's first year or so).
 

KingSweden24

Darth_Kiryan said:
Hmmm. One thing about this is guessing who is a Confederate General vs a United States General in this ATL, , especially from those who fought together in WW1

We know Pershing is Northern.
So is Leonard Wood - although, a lot of his career OTL was because of his relationship with Teddy Roosevelt, so it does make me wonder how his career has gone in this ATL
Tasker Bliss

Robert Lee Bullard is in the South.
James F Bell.
Beaumont Bonaparte Buck - now that is an awesome southern Name. :p
Henry Pinckney McCain - was US Army Adjutant General in OTL 1914-1918....wonder if has a similar confederate posting in this ATL?
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Damn that is an amazing name lol
 

Darth_Kiryan

Butterfluies, George C Marshall is going to have an interesting career if he exists...

Irony if he ends up as Confederate President.... :p
 
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SWS

SWS

Darth_Kiryan said:
Hmmm. One thing about this is guessing who is a Confederate General vs a United States General in this ATL, , especially from those who fought together in WW1

We know Pershing is Northern.
So is Leonard Wood - although, a lot of his career OTL was because of his relationship with Teddy Roosevelt, so it does make me wonder how his career has gone in this ATL
Tasker Bliss

Robert Lee Bullard is in the South.
James F Bell.
Beaumont Bonaparte Buck - now that is an awesome southern Name. :p
Henry Pinckney McCain - was US Army Adjutant General in OTL 1914-1918....wonder if has a similar confederate posting in this ATL?
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I still support the idea of Richard "Dixie" Taylor Jr. (or his older brother, Zachary), whose OTL death by scarlet fever is butterflied, becoming a major figure in either the Central Front or Western Theater. I wonder how the VMI-Citadel rivalry develops ITTL in terms of achieving distinction as the Confederate West Point. Military high schools, directed by technocratic Confederate officers, should remain vogue as in the Antebellum in order to raise generations experienced in chemistry and engineering for positions in modern 'agriculture, mining, textiles, railroad management, and other professions that require technical expertise.' Even the A&M colleges should offer cadet corps programs, establishing the base for a rising junior officer corps in the Confederate Army. There is also the C.S. Naval Academy at Drewry's Bluff.
Darth_Kiryan said:
Butterfluies, George C Marshall is going to have an interesting career if he exists...

Irony if he ends up as Confederate President.... :p
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His father may have become a Kentucky coal magnate. Over the last few days I've been conceiving him as some sort of Southern 'Atatürk' who becomes the Confederacy's principal war hero as the 'Savior of Richmond' due to the possible development of an Urbanna campaign.
 
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Darth_Kiryan

SWS said:
I wonder how the VMI-Citadel rivalry develops ITTL in terms of achieving distinction as the Confederate West Point. Military high schools, directed by technocratic Confederate officers, should remain vogue as in the Antebellum in order to raise generations experienced in chemistry and engineering for positions in modern 'agriculture, mining, textiles, railroad management, and other professions that require technical expertise.' Even the A&M colleges should offer cadet corps programs, establishing the base for a rising junior officer corps in the Confederate Army. There is also the C.S. Naval Academy at Drewry's Bluff.
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Charles P Summerhall would like to know your location.
 
Kennedy Forever

Kennedy Forever

KingSweden24 said:
"...sophisticated, developing and modernizing societies; nonetheless, it was the Confederacy that was at the lynchpin of the alliance. Without it as a shield, Brazil would have never dared act unilaterally on her ambitions in her periphery; without it as the tip of the spear, Mexico would have been unlikely to make its substantial economic disagreements with the United States a cause for war.

Postwar, the Confederacy's military prowess was retroactively downplayed, but it was a serious emerging power even if it was not an exact peer to the United States. By the autumn of 1913, it had six battleships, four of them dreadnoughts with a fifth to be delivered late the following year, as well as thirteen cruisers - a total naval tonnage that would have been respectable for a second-tier European power. Each of its states could mobilize a state militia of between fifteen to twenty-five thousand men on quick demand and by late November it would have put an army of over half a million men into the field and it had a robust armaments sector particularly well-developed in the manufacture of artillery shells. It had an industrial density similar to that of Italy and despite its considerable societal inequalities a rapidly rising per capita income on par with that of Austria or Belgium. After two deep, long-lasting agricultural depressions in the 1870s and 1890s that had caused mass dislocation but also substantial economic reforms and innovations, it was one of the fastest growing economies in the Western Hemisphere and had finally begun to seriously attract levels of immigrants comparable to Canada or Mexico, though still not at the mass pace of its northern cousin or the countries of the Southern Cone. Its white population had an above-average literacy rate, particularly women, and was urbanizing rapidly. It was mostly in comparison to the trio of great European powers - Britain, France and Germany - and the United States that it can be considered anything other than a rising, ambitious state.

Its membership in the Bloc Sud was what made all that followed possible; it is also, not coincidentally, what gave the Confederate States leadership, from the civilian officialdom starting with President Ellison "Cotton Ed" Smith as well as the military hierarchy embodied in the cool and collected General Hugh Scott, Commander-in-Chief of the Army Staff Office, such confidence in the opening salvos of the war. One can also see in contemporary military planning documents as well as reactive responses to the conflict just how seriously the United States took its opponent, a begrudging respect for its capabilities that speaks to the remarkably harsh postwar settlement imposed upon Richmond, particularly on its military capabilities.

What the Confederacy showed off on September 9th was an impressive display of strategic creativity and operational art that would be studied by war gamers and staff colleges for decades to come; as the German General Edwin von Rommel would once comment in his book on the war (Rommel served as a military observer in the Eastern Theater embedded with the United States), "The Confederate tactical prowess was combined with a well-practiced, disciplined plan executed across a vast front line within a half hour, timed with clockwork precision to confuse and overwhelm their opponent with infantry, artillery, aerial scouting and naval assets simultaneously." In modern terms the operation would be termed as combined arms warfare, but there was no such language for it then. What language existed to describe the Confederate attack on the morning of September 9th was merely one of awe.

At 5:00 AM, the order to move to attack positions was received by Confederate soldiers both near its staging ground outside of Martinsburg as well as the division south of Alexandria City and the II Atlantic Squadron that had left Norfolk on Sunday evening and was now anchored in the Pocomoke Sound, just south of the international border on the Delmarva Peninsula. At 5:30, a second telegraphed coded message was broadcast out to all soldiers - "HHH. HHH. HHH." For close to ten years, it had been the most feared and anticipated signal in the Confederate military: the codeword to commence an attack on the United States.

In later years, it became vogue in the United States to criticize if not condemn the behavior of the Maryland National Guard during the second week of September, and indeed its seeming habit of melting before the enemy at the slightest contact did it no favors in the eyes of the public or policymakers. Nonetheless, it had a major disadvantage of being a force of barely twenty thousand men, many whom had been Guardsmen for close to twenty years, defending a small, still oft-agricultural state across a variety of theaters. The largest barracks of the Maryland Guard was in Hagerstown, directly across the Potomac from the Confederate line of attack and behind aging but stout defenses designed to prevent another crossing such as that of 1862. The main thrust of the Confederate attack was aimed here, firing two divisions up the Monocacy Valley to cut the east-west rail, telegraph and canal infrastructure to Washington. [1] The riverfront defenses were undermanned and were quickly overwhelmed under artillery fire and the attack occurring effectively at dawn; by nine in the morning, Confederate forces had secured their bridgeheads and were marching to meet Maryland forces at Hagerstown.

The second thrust of the attack was to seize more crossings of the Potomac, and these met even less opposition. Near the site of the 1862 Battle of Sharpsburg that ended inconclusively, a cavalry regiment forded the river at a shallow point and seized the railroad bridge nearby, allowing a brigade across; downriver at Harpers Ferry, a full division attacked across the river, splitting in half to secure a defensive perimeter five miles to the north in the highlands ridge of South Mountain while the other contingent marched along the river to secure bridgeheads on the east side of the highlands (two more divisions would be formed by the 11th in Leesburg to be brought across there) and seize the strategic railyards at Brunswick. The Maryland National Guard had a second, smaller barracks at Frederick and foolishly split these forces in half; they were twice repelled by Confederate defenders as they attempted to respond to reports of Confederates everywhere and move towards Washington, where federal forces were overwhelmed in artillery bombardment, and reinforce a small National Guard garrison in Baltimore as its harbor erupted in fire and explosions early that morning. By striking out in two prongs while using heavy fire against the two largest population centers in the region - including the critical capital - the Confederates were able to achieve all their day one objectives by early afternoon and regroup for the second wave of reinforcements to cross on the morning of the 10th as mobilization continued apace. The Battle of the Monocacy, as the engagements became known, were over within a day and were decisive Confederate victories, with hundreds of National Guardsmen captured and the majority of them fleeing in hurried retreat..."

- Alliance Against America: Inside the Bloc Sud

[1] The B&O railroad runs north of the Potomac until West Virginia, as I'm sure you can all imagine
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DanMcCollum

DanMcCollum

SWS said:
I still support the idea of Richard "Dixie" Taylor Jr. (or his older brother, Zachary), whose OTL death by scarlet fever is butterflied, becoming a major figure in either the Central Front or Western Theater.
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Well Richard jr was born in 1860 and died in 64; so he'd be only 53 years of age here. Having him live would be interesting - especially if he manages to have a political career after the war. Perhaps he's out potential Confederate General running as President after Cotton Ed blessedly reaches the end of his political career. Being the grandson of a US President, plus a Confederate military hero would be all kinds of an interesting resume.
 
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