OTL's WWI Caucasus campaign is probably the best comparison to the Andean Front (with elements of any war fought in the Pyrenees) but with higher mountains. By comparison, the Appalachians and Ozarks are a piece of cake!
Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Of course!
But I was more so talking about the naming conventions.
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Interested in seeing the immediate reaction to the the Chilean surrender in the Confederacy- both amongst the chattering classes and the Administration in Richmond.
I'm not sure the Brazilian one is going to make *that* much difference. The Brazilian contribution to the Confederate military forces has been (as far as the Author has shown) Naval. If Hilton Head wipes out 80% (picking a number) of the CSA navy and 50% (picking another number) of the (smaller, I believe) Brazilian Navy, then the USN will be able to pretty much anywhere it wants on the Confederate coast regardless of whether the Brazilians are in the war or not. And immediately after Hilton Head, the idea that there are no Brazilian ships north of Hispanola isn't unreasonable.
The *Mexican* surrender OTOH...
On another note, are there any Confederate cities at the level of destruction of Washington and Baltimore, yet? I guess Memphis and Nashville are in the running for that. Don't remember how flattened Louisville was when it was taken.
Also, there is a part of me that wants the POW camps for captured Confederates to be run by Negros.
Also, there is a part of me that wants the POW camps for captured Confederates to be run by Negros.
Wait what?
Argentina can now bring Forces from Andean Front to the Platine one.
The author has made it clear that *most* of the Argentinian forces have been against the Brazilians. The Argentinians were on defense a few key Andean passes and the Chilean Military is tilted toward its navy more than almost all other countries (both iTTL and OTL). While it is the Author's decision, I'd be surprised if two months prior to surrender, 10% of the Argentinian Army was on the Chilean Border and less than 5% wouldn't surprise me. The other difference is that even if the Chileans did break through, it is a *long* way to the heart of Argentina, the Brazilians are OTOH, on the doorstep. Yes, the Chileans control land in the south on the other side of the Andes iTTL, but I'm not even sure it is connected by road to the rest of Chile. The best comparison that I can give is the Central Powers in WWI was Germany/Austria Hungary/Japan (So the Russians can trade via the Black Sea), how much of the Russian Military would be involved stopping Japan.
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The same Parana that is helping Argentina hold off Brazil will make it difficult for Argentina to go on the offensive, even if they are boosted by several thousand more troops from the Chilean front.
The Platean front looks like a standstill for all intents and purposes.
The Platean front looks like a standstill for all intents and purposes.
IMO, the ability to ship munitions and such safely from Peru/Bolivia/Chile to Argentina is *probably* more of a help to the Argentines than being able to pull all of the troops off the Chilean border. (and if the Brazilians decided to do something about it, the part of the US Navy shipped around the horn will have more to do. I will be more expensive than shipping it through BA, but cost isn't the determining factor here.
Fall of Nashville
"...two armies smashed into one another about five kilometers north of Lebanon on the morning of May 2nd; this was the first time in over ten months that either side, with the exception of the action west of the Tennessee River, had genuinely fought a battle of maneuver, and the advantage flowed overwhelmingly to Lenihan and his forces. "With the river to our backs," he noted after the war, "there could be no retreat. We would have Lebanon, or we would be prisoners." By the evening the next day, Lenihan had, albeit with staggering casualties compared to his previously successful campaigns, seized Lebanon and her environs, and even more importantly the railroads passing east out of it through rural Wilson County towards Knoxville were in Yankee hands. Nashville had now been choked off from the east.
The next domino to fall came on the 5th, as the defenses of the Highland Rim around Ridgetop and Ashland City collapsed, with trenches overrun and foxholes and pillboxes cleared by flamethrower-toting "fireteams." Hundreds of American soldiers were killed as they stepped on landmines, but the press down along the Cumberland River and towards Nashville from north and north-west was unstoppable now as the thinned numbers of defenders were unable to sustain themselves against the tactical push to take advantage of Lenihan's breakthrough further east. At sunset on the 5th of May, [1] from atop a dusty ridgeline, General Farnsworth saw his prize that had eluded him for ten long, brutal, exhausting and dismaying months in the basin below him, barely visible through the smoke and ash - what remained of the city of Nashville, and his men marching towards it. In his diaries, he compared it to Moses seeing the Promised Land; he wept profusely and remarked that he could retire and die having secured his mission "at the death knell" of his impending replacement by Pershing, and indeed Farnsworth would tender his resignation shortly upon being relieved, too spent and emotionally broken by the hell of his command, and spent the rest of his life quietly as a military instructor and then civic leader..."
- Bleeding Heartland: The Midlands Front of the Great American War
"...the breaching of the Inner Line from three sides broke the spirits of the city's defenders, already thinned out to push the Yankee back across the Cumberland by Lebanon. Long's men were each handed a pistol and told that they were no longer supply escorts but city defenders; long after the war, Long estimated that all of two, not including himself, of his small platoon survived the hell that was the infamous "Seven Days" of Nashville.
The city had been badly damaged by long-distance artillery and aerial raids over the last ten months but even in early May was something resembling what had once been a city; after the Seven Days, it would be little but blackened rubble. The approaching Yankees announced their arrival with rolling artillery that now in closer proximity to the city shattered everything in their path; they were supported by death from the sky, with planes strafing Confederate lines and dropping small incendiary bombs. The worst came on the 7th, when the Yankee forces stopped at the northern outskirts of the city to wait; suddenly, gas canisters rained all over Nashville, clouds of white fumes rising up over the rubble and snaking through doorways and around corners to make eyes water and lungs burn. Despite months of fears over a gas attack, the defenders still did not have sufficient gas masks, and that was a big part of how Long was in the end captured. Caught in the midst of a bad cloud, he collapsed convinced he would die and seeing visions of Rose through the chaos; that he survived, albeit with a bad cough for the rest of his life, he took as a sign from Providence that he was meant for something greater. As the gas cleared, the Yankees pushed into the city, fighting building to building, sometimes even room to room and hand to hand. Long was discovered by a young lieutenant leaned against a wall, abandoned by his comrades, still nearly coughing up a lung, and he claimed that he survived only because his pistol was lying several feet from him rather than in his hand..."
- Every Man a Kingfish: The Life and Rise to Power of Huey Long
"...Buck's order to retreat towards Murfreesboro and beyond before Lenihan could cut off the routes of retreat to the city's southeast; the American army turned west anyways to march into the city and seize it. After seven long days of brutal urban warfare in which thousands of Confederate defenders were slaughtered and mere hundreds - including future President of the Confederate States Huey Long - taken prisoner, the city was in American hands, though what remained of Nashville could barely be called a city. After ten months, the campaign for Nashville was over. The Inner Line had failed, the city destroyed, and the Army of Tennessee broken..."
- Making Sense of the Senseless: The Great American War at 100
[1] Subtlety, what is it?
The next domino to fall came on the 5th, as the defenses of the Highland Rim around Ridgetop and Ashland City collapsed, with trenches overrun and foxholes and pillboxes cleared by flamethrower-toting "fireteams." Hundreds of American soldiers were killed as they stepped on landmines, but the press down along the Cumberland River and towards Nashville from north and north-west was unstoppable now as the thinned numbers of defenders were unable to sustain themselves against the tactical push to take advantage of Lenihan's breakthrough further east. At sunset on the 5th of May, [1] from atop a dusty ridgeline, General Farnsworth saw his prize that had eluded him for ten long, brutal, exhausting and dismaying months in the basin below him, barely visible through the smoke and ash - what remained of the city of Nashville, and his men marching towards it. In his diaries, he compared it to Moses seeing the Promised Land; he wept profusely and remarked that he could retire and die having secured his mission "at the death knell" of his impending replacement by Pershing, and indeed Farnsworth would tender his resignation shortly upon being relieved, too spent and emotionally broken by the hell of his command, and spent the rest of his life quietly as a military instructor and then civic leader..."
- Bleeding Heartland: The Midlands Front of the Great American War
"...the breaching of the Inner Line from three sides broke the spirits of the city's defenders, already thinned out to push the Yankee back across the Cumberland by Lebanon. Long's men were each handed a pistol and told that they were no longer supply escorts but city defenders; long after the war, Long estimated that all of two, not including himself, of his small platoon survived the hell that was the infamous "Seven Days" of Nashville.
The city had been badly damaged by long-distance artillery and aerial raids over the last ten months but even in early May was something resembling what had once been a city; after the Seven Days, it would be little but blackened rubble. The approaching Yankees announced their arrival with rolling artillery that now in closer proximity to the city shattered everything in their path; they were supported by death from the sky, with planes strafing Confederate lines and dropping small incendiary bombs. The worst came on the 7th, when the Yankee forces stopped at the northern outskirts of the city to wait; suddenly, gas canisters rained all over Nashville, clouds of white fumes rising up over the rubble and snaking through doorways and around corners to make eyes water and lungs burn. Despite months of fears over a gas attack, the defenders still did not have sufficient gas masks, and that was a big part of how Long was in the end captured. Caught in the midst of a bad cloud, he collapsed convinced he would die and seeing visions of Rose through the chaos; that he survived, albeit with a bad cough for the rest of his life, he took as a sign from Providence that he was meant for something greater. As the gas cleared, the Yankees pushed into the city, fighting building to building, sometimes even room to room and hand to hand. Long was discovered by a young lieutenant leaned against a wall, abandoned by his comrades, still nearly coughing up a lung, and he claimed that he survived only because his pistol was lying several feet from him rather than in his hand..."
- Every Man a Kingfish: The Life and Rise to Power of Huey Long
"...Buck's order to retreat towards Murfreesboro and beyond before Lenihan could cut off the routes of retreat to the city's southeast; the American army turned west anyways to march into the city and seize it. After seven long days of brutal urban warfare in which thousands of Confederate defenders were slaughtered and mere hundreds - including future President of the Confederate States Huey Long - taken prisoner, the city was in American hands, though what remained of Nashville could barely be called a city. After ten months, the campaign for Nashville was over. The Inner Line had failed, the city destroyed, and the Army of Tennessee broken..."
- Making Sense of the Senseless: The Great American War at 100
[1] Subtlety, what is it?
Nashville falling and Chile surrendering, my oh my is May 5th 1915 busy.
Dread it, run from it, alt!Featherston comes all the same in Confederate scenarios... /s
In all seriousness Long will obviously be very different from Hitler or Dixie Hitler but Long's gotta get the authoritarian's penchant for conspiracy theories from somewhere
Can easily see "WI: Huey Long killed at Nashville?" being a common question on this timeline's alternatehistory.en
Actually, I got sort of a wierd vibe from it that Kingfisher iTTL might be something like the King Fisher of men, as in "I will make you fishers of men" leading Longism to be viewed as not only the Dixie equivalent to Integralism but *somewhat* mixed with the way that the Mormons did the "United Order" early in their history (which frankly is *very* socialist, making the LDS Church's position on the conservative end of the economic spectrum today all the more bizarre). I guess, I'm *sort* of grabbing from What Madness Is This, but that's dialed up to 11, this maybe only to 3 or 4???
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