Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Is the US going to take the Baja Peninsula in a peace agreement with Mexico?
It seems like it to me as well. Taking Baja California would safeguard Southern California in case of future conflict and give the US to the gulf of California.
Plus I just really enjoy TLs where Baja is added to the US for some reason lol
While Mexico *might* avoid it due to wanting to have strong relations with the Confederacy, I'm not sure that Chile's deliberate alignment with those nations which opposed emancipation really doesn't happen until the 1880s, I think.
Trying to reduce Haiti to a slave state would be a *complete* mess as the United States would probably leave enough weaponry (and probably supply through the DR) to keep it as a running sore for Decades. In the US, I don't think there were significant areas (even in places like the black belt) where whites were outnumbered 20-1, but Haiti would probably be at least that for decades.
I’ve never claimed the Confederates were smart!
🤐
That being said there’s a certain part of me that sees an appeal in basically swapping Baja and Hawaii in terms of its role in the US as “mega naval station but also internal tropical vacation/retirement spot”It seems like it to me as well. Taking Baja California would safeguard Southern California in case of future conflict and give the US to the gulf of California.
Plus I just really enjoy TLs where Baja is added to the US for some reason lol
Ah, the irony of Pancho Villa and Pershing fighting together. So it seems sooner than later Mexico will be exiting the war (depending on Pershing's campaign, of course). I still hope that whatever penalties the US imposes Mexico in the peace treaty, the cession of the Baja California peninsula isn't one of them. As I've said before, it'd be refreshing to see a timeline where Mexico manages to keep the peninsula (as it seems TL writers on the site love giving it to the USA, whether during the OTL war or another conflict decades later).
US Post war Mapmaking (vs. OTL) from Shower Thoughts
iOTL (even in 1910 but especially in the mid 20th century), the "standard" map is *roughly* a rectangle, with Alaska and Hawaii as insets covering up interior Sonora/Chihuahua and points south. As such, *maybe* 20% of Canada is shown (although that includes more than half the Canadian Population ) and ignoring the insets about 20-30% of Mexico. (and *maybe*, but not commonly, the edge of Cuba.
iTTL, before the war, the map would have still been rectangular and still probably includes most of the same area, but would include 80%+ of the CSA (even if it went exactly through the southernmost point of the US (at San Diego, the California/Mexico border isn't W to E it is slightly SW to NE) and far, far less of Mexico. (simply put the US is shorter N/S than OTL and as such really only needs to show the closest border areas to California)
*However* Post war, presuming the US gets Baja, that makes the contiguous US *longer* N/S. In fact, the southern tip of Baja (Cabo San Lucas) is actually slightly south of Havana!
The US map rectangular map iTTL will include all of the RoT, and all of the Confederacy, and closer to 40% of Mexico and a smidgeon of Cuba.
iOTL (even in 1910 but especially in the mid 20th century), the "standard" map is *roughly* a rectangle, with Alaska and Hawaii as insets covering up interior Sonora/Chihuahua and points south. As such, *maybe* 20% of Canada is shown (although that includes more than half the Canadian Population ) and ignoring the insets about 20-30% of Mexico. (and *maybe*, but not commonly, the edge of Cuba.
iTTL, before the war, the map would have still been rectangular and still probably includes most of the same area, but would include 80%+ of the CSA (even if it went exactly through the southernmost point of the US (at San Diego, the California/Mexico border isn't W to E it is slightly SW to NE) and far, far less of Mexico. (simply put the US is shorter N/S than OTL and as such really only needs to show the closest border areas to California)
*However* Post war, presuming the US gets Baja, that makes the contiguous US *longer* N/S. In fact, the southern tip of Baja (Cabo San Lucas) is actually slightly south of Havana!
The US map rectangular map iTTL will include all of the RoT, and all of the Confederacy, and closer to 40% of Mexico and a smidgeon of Cuba.
War reparations, benefits for US companies in Mexican soil, turn back any nationalization reform and assurance that the interests of said companies will be respected.
In the chapter about Mexico joining the war, a high government official or general (don't remember which) indicated that Mexico would have to choose between land and treasure to get out of the war. It seems to come down to *either* Mexico goes back to the pre-war situation where the Americans controlled more of the Mexican economy than many were comfortable politically *and* the borders don't change *or* Mexico gives up Baja and the US cares less about their Nationalistic moves. (Reparations would probably be part of things anyway).
Though honestly, I would imagine in Philadelphia if Mexico signed a peace treaty at the point where we are in the story, the US would be *close* to accepting just money. After Nashville and the CSN fall, OTOH...
CarlosMalvinas
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Mayo!? Oh man i love Mayo, always get it on my chicken rolls and burgers... unless we're talking about County Mayo. Do you guys think they'll ever beat Dublin in Football?
Glad you appreciate the irony! Haha
Right, this is the key to the internal tension I have on what way Mexico goes and what Philly is willing to accept, and why I take the argument presented by @Capibara seriously. Mexico can get out of the war but at a price. The motivations for Mexico entering the war (and my personal thumb-on-scale motivation for getting them to Southern European levels of development/standard of living by 2023) were after all a strong dose of economic nationalism that brought together an otherwise very opposed right and left, which as Pancho Villa’s entry into the story here shows is still coming to violence even in the middle of a fucking war. With this in mind, I’ve always leaned towards Mexico choosing to punt Baja to the wolves to sustain a healthy dose of economic nationalism - otherwise, what was the war and their early exit for?
That said, @Capibara is right that a lot of TLs lazily paint Baja California the same color as the US on a map. My weird OCD side is interested in what a US-held Baja that is it’s own state would look like (almost certainly plurality if not majority Hispanic, I’d imagine - hence my comparisons of making it “Latino Hawaii”) rather than the lazy muh US Baja trope, but it is true that blood and soil Mexican nationalism would react very poorly to being forced to offload more land to El Yanqui yet again at gunpoint to exit a war they stumbled into.
I’m sure it’s obvious which way I’m leaning but hopefully that outlines my thought process a bit
Lol
Personally either a demilitarized zone in Mexico or naval concessions that allows the USN another base to support the Canal Zone would be more unique and still be substantial gains. Taking all of Baja looks good on a map but it doesn’t really give the US anything of major strategic value that geographically smaller gains would also.
Edit: Think Cabo San Lucas being a Mexican Guantanamo, for example
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Agree, naval concessions would achieve similar results to ceding all the peninsula and Mexico would be more inclined to agree to it. At this point, even with the extra development of Mexico TTL, Baja California should pretty much still be mostly small settlements and cities, with lots of desert in between. As you pointed out, the US wouldn't be getting much out of the land cession and its more probable that it would result in cool relations between the 2 countries for longer than if only reparations and naval bases are expected from the Mexicans.
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Bahia de Magdalena up the coast from Los Cabos would probably be a more straightforward/strategic naval base if were
Looking for Guantanamo parallels (much as I love Cabo its immediate bay isn’t great as a naval port).
But, yes, Baja would basically strike many as “hot Alaska” in terms of its value if used as the main pick up from the war in a land cession considering its sparse population
I’ll leave the specifics up the the boys at the State Department in Philly.
The situation in Baja postwar depends on two factors.
1) How populated in Baja at this point relative to OTL. We know Mexico is more populated iTTL than iOTL, but the question is whether Baja is still the middle of nowhere that it was iOTL. This is, of course Author's decision, but what we've seen indicates not much more populated than OTL due to how few places the US Marines had to invade.
2) The level of "Get Out *now*" on the current residents of Baja on a scale from "OTL Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo" to the Post WWII Germans living East of the Oder.
To get a majority hispanic state (using OTL New Mexico) has a model with both English and Spanish as official languages, it probably needs to be near the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo and reasonably populated. OTOH, if the population is similar to OTL and the US takes what it will do to the Virginia part of the Delmarva Peninsula (or Northern Virginia) as a model, then you are still fairly likely to hit the "Lazy muh Baja trope" whether you want to or not. Also, if the US takes Baja, it is less likely to have *continued* Mexican immigration the way that the US States in the Southwest do due to both a richer Mexico (Nothing like the Maquiladora) and the short Baja Sonora border. If the US gets Baja, 95(?)% of the border with Mexico will be on currently Confederate Arizona and 5% on Baja. (and while preventing "boat people" across the Sea of Cortez will be just about impossible, if Mexico is as rich as the US per capita, you won't get that many)
Also, we could see the question of the name of the sea between Baja and Mainland Mexico being as contentious as the name iOTL of the sea between Japan and Korea. (See of Cortez vs. Gulf of California)
Another funny thing would be just how many bases up and down the Pacific side of the Americas that the US could get at the end of the war. At the moment they have the Pacific side of the Nicaragua Canal and the base in Peru. They could reasonably add to that something in Mexico (either in Baja or in a Naval concession) as well as Punta Arenas near the cape. (Northern Chile would be too close to Peru.)
The other thing I have to remember is that Chile holds a *lot* of OTL Southern Argentina. The US could get *all* of OTL Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina *and* all of Magallanes Region, Chile in the end of war treaties, and Argentina would *still* get more and more habitable land than the US. Why get *one* icebox (Alaska) when you can have *two*) Note, I expect by the end of the war that the US will have actually killed more Chileans than the Argentines have (with the Peruvians in second place, not sure on the Bolivians) So the US grabbing more Chilean territory than Argentina wouldn't necessarily be stabbing the Argentines in the back.
Note, iOTL, the farthest south you can drive in Chile without crossing over into Argentina is the town of O'Higgins, O'Higgins is slightly closer to the Equator than *Seattle* is.
The other thing I have to remember is that Chile holds a *lot* of OTL Southern Argentina. The US could get *all* of OTL Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina *and* all of Magallanes Region, Chile in the end of war treaties, and Argentina would *still* get more and more habitable land than the US. Why get *one* icebox (Alaska) when you can have *two*) Note, I expect by the end of the war that the US will have actually killed more Chileans than the Argentines have (with the Peruvians in second place, not sure on the Bolivians) So the US grabbing more Chilean territory than Argentina wouldn't necessarily be stabbing the Argentines in the back.
Note, iOTL, the farthest south you can drive in Chile without crossing over into Argentina is the town of O'Higgins, O'Higgins is slightly closer to the Equator than *Seattle* is.
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