DBWI: King George III doesn't die after reading the Declaration of Independence?

[Chris Oakley]

By now you've probably seen the History Channel's four-part DVD documentary series about the American Revolution. One segment that I found particularly interesting was the chapter on Disc 2 that recounts how King George III became so apoplectic while reading the Declaration of Independence that he suffered a fatal stroke and was dead within 36 hours; some historians say that event might have cost Britain the war right then and there. Certainly it triggered a major disruption to the British war effort as Parliament tried to resolve the succession crisis George III's death brought about. It also played a major role in the chain of events that led to Ontario becoming the 14th U.S. state after the war ended and the founding of the Republic of Quebec.

Now, just for grins and giggles, let's imagine George III doesn't have that fatal stroke in 1776. How much longer would the Revolutionary War(which in our timeline ended with the surrender of British troops at Savannah, Georgia in 1778) have gone on if George III had survived the reading? Would Ontario still be a U.S. state? Would the Republic of Quebec still exist? Could the British Army have found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the American Revolutionary War, or would they have lost the war anyhow? And what would have been the fate of Benedict Arnold, the brilliant if somewhat controversial Continental Army commander who presided over the costly 1777 assault on the British garrison in New York City and was subsequently court-martialed for disregarding General Washington's orders not to begin the attack until American artillery had knocked out the British garrison's first two lines of defense?

 

[Lost Freeway]

Assuming the Americans still win, Anglo-American relations would remain frosty for a lot longer. The efforts of King William IV and Prime Minister Edmund Burke went a long way towards removing the lingering resentment between Britain and her former colonies.

 

[Chris Oakley]

So you're suggesting the war might have gone on until, say, 1781 or '82?

 

[iddt3]

While a longer War probably means America takes longer to recover, it might lead to Centralization sooner. In OTL, it took the Spanish American clusterfuck and the near session of a number of states to drive home that something stronger than the Articles of Confederation was needed, a longer war might generate more awareness of the weakness of the articles. You might also actually have better relations between America and other European powers, they were certainly jumping in in 1777 already, but the relatively speedy end of the war meant that the contributions of the French were mostly Naval and moral (and of course scaring the British with the prospect that if they didn't cut their losses *now* they could lose a great deal more.)

 

[Indicus]

OOC: Ontario won't be called Ontario, nor will it be a state. It will be a territory, either part of Ohio or an individual territory perhaps called Huronia. Ontario is a recent name arising from Confederation in 1867.

 

[Draeger]

I'm inclined to think that the restoration of relations between the states and the British takes a lot longer TTL, in agreement with previous commenters. The war drags on, and wears out the fledgling confederation. Their armies are spent and the British have more of an edge at the peace talks. The Treaty of London is probably far less generous to the Americans. The Crown retains Canada, obviously, as a whole. Quebec never revolts, in all likeliness. As for Benedict, he has about as much fame as Greene---noteworthy commander, not much else. I don't foresee a career in politics though. Possible that Washington never becomes president?

 

[Chris Oakley]

While a longer War probably means America takes longer to recover, it might lead to Centralization sooner. In OTL, it took the Spanish American clusterfuck and the near session of a number of states to drive home that something stronger than the Articles of Confederation was needed, a longer war might generate more awareness of the weakness of the articles.

Speaking of fragile governments, would you agree or disagree that the political fallout in Britain from King George III's premature demise helped fuel the Edinburgh Insurrection in Scotland during the early 1780s?

 

[Penny for The Guy]

Exciseman Paine

Speaking of fragile governments, would you agree or disagree that the political fallout in Britain from King George III's premature demise helped fuel the Edinburgh Insurrection in Scotland during the early 1780s?

If you get rid of that damned rabble rouser Exciseman Paine, there would be no Edinburgh regardless. Ship the SOB off to the Americas, and let them deal with him and his atheistic theories about destruction of the Monarchy and his "communard" society!

 

[Johnrankins]

While a longer War probably means America takes longer to recover, it might lead to Centralization sooner. In OTL, it took the Spanish American clusterfuck and the near session of a number of states to drive home that something stronger than the Articles of Confederation was needed, a longer war might generate more awareness of the weakness of the articles. You might also actually have better relations between America and other European powers, they were certainly jumping in in 1777 already, but the relatively speedy end of the war meant that the contributions of the French were mostly Naval and moral (and of course scaring the British with the prospect that if they didn't cut their losses *now* they could lose a great deal more.)

The US was lucky that the Napoleonic Wars broke out when the fight over Florida happened. The US would have lost many more lives if it hadn't. With the war going on Spain had to give up on it.

OOC: I can't see the Articles of Confederation lasting that long. The government was way too weak under it.

 

[Chris Oakley]

If you get rid of that damned rabble rouser Exciseman Paine, there would be no Edinburgh regardless. Ship the SOB off to the Americas, and let them deal with him and his atheistic theories about destruction of the Monarchy and his "communard" society!

Didn't Paine actually contemplate emigrating to America at one point before he ultimately decided to join the Scottish insurrectionists?

 

[CaliBoy1990]

By now you've probably seen the History Channel's four-part DVD documentary series about the American Revolution. One segment that I found particularly interesting was the chapter on Disc 2 that recounts how King George III became so apoplectic while reading the Declaration of Independence that he suffered a fatal stroke and was dead within 36 hours; some historians say that event might have cost Britain the war right then and there. Certainly it triggered a major disruption to the British war effort as Parliament tried to resolve the succession crisis George III's death brought about. It also played a major role in the chain of events that led to Ontario becoming the 14th U.S. state after the war ended and the founding of the Republic of Quebec.

Now, just for grins and giggles, let's imagine George III doesn't have that fatal stroke in 1776. How much longer would the Revolutionary War(which in our timeline ended with the surrender of British troops at Savannah, Georgia in 1778) have gone on if George III had survived the reading? Would Ontario still be a U.S. state? Would the Republic of Quebec still exist? Could the British Army have found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the American Revolutionary War, or would they have lost the war anyhow? And what would have been the fate of Benedict Arnold, the brilliant if somewhat controversial Continental Army commander who presided over the costly 1777 assault on the British garrison in New York City and was subsequently court-martialed for disregarding General Washington's orders not to begin the attack until American artillery had knocked out the British garrison's first two lines of defense?

Anybody remember "For Want of a Stroke" from 1976? There, George III doesn't die of his stroke, and the war lasts longer.....leading to a somewhat different French Revolution, amongst other things(and rather earlier, too, considering that Louis XIX wasn't toppled until the December Coup in 1824! Before then, several secessionist states had popped up between 1819 and then, starting with the Commune in Lyons).

Oh, and Canada does become a Dominion, by the way, including with a much bigger Ontario. (Whereas OTL's state of Ontario, as admitted in 1825, was very much a medium-sized state and didn't even reach the 48th parallel.)

OOC: Ontario won't be called Ontario, nor will it be a state. It will be a territory, either part of Ohio or an individual territory perhaps called Huronia. Ontario is a recent name arising from Confederation in 1867.

OOC: Could be, but that's not inevitable-there could certainly still be an Ontario(it was named after the lake, after all!), and it being a separate state(but part of Ohio? The U.S. buying Ireland from Britain is much more likely than that!).

The US was lucky that the Napoleonic Wars broke out when the fight over Florida happened. The US would have lost many more lives if it hadn't. With the war going on Spain had to give up on it.

OOC: I can't see the Articles of Confederation lasting that long. The government was way too weak under it.

IC: And with that, maybe Florida wouldn't have been admitted in 1828 as per OTL?

OOC: I don't think it would have, either.

 

[Chris Oakley]

Anybody remember "For Want of a Stroke" from 1976? There, George III doesn't die of his stroke, and the war lasts longer.....leading to a somewhat different French Revolution, amongst other things(and rather earlier, too, considering that Louis XIX wasn't toppled until the December Coup in 1824! Before then, several secessionist states had popped up between 1819 and then, starting with the Commune in Lyons).

Yeah, I remember that book. I think it was one of the inspirations for Turtledove's "French Republic" series. One of the most interesting subplots of those books had to do with a relatively obscure Corsican artilleryman named Bonaparte who in OTL was a casualty of the Anglo-French wars in the Middle East but in Turtledove's ATL rises to become one of the most powerful men in France.

 

[Johnrankins]

Anybody remember "For Want of a Stroke" from 1976? There, George III doesn't die of his stroke, and the war lasts longer.....leading to a somewhat different French Revolution, amongst other things(and rather earlier, too, considering that Louis XIX wasn't toppled until the December Coup in 1824! Before then, several secessionist states had popped up between 1819 and then, starting with the Commune in Lyons).

Oh, and Canada does become a Dominion, by the way, including with a much bigger Ontario. (Whereas OTL's state of Ontario, as admitted in 1825, was very much a medium-sized state and didn't even reach the 48th parallel.)



OOC: Could be, but that's not inevitable-there could certainly still be an Ontario(it was named after the lake, after all!), and it being a separate state(but part of Ohio? The U.S. buying Ireland from Britain is much more likely than that!).



IC: And with that, maybe Florida wouldn't have been admitted in 1828 as per OTL?

OOC: I don't think it would have, either.

Yeah, I don't know if we would have gotten Florida that early either. Maybe not until Spain lost almost the entire Western Hemisphere. We may have had to pay for the Western US instead of just grabbing it when Spain moved out.

 

[CaliBoy1990]

Yeah, I remember that book. I think it was one of the inspirations for Turtledove's "French Republic" series. One of the most interesting subplots of those books had to do with a relatively obscure Corsican artilleryman named Bonaparte who in OTL was a casualty of the Anglo-French wars in the Middle East but in Turtledove's ATL rises to become one of the most powerful men in France.

IIRC, other than his part in the defense of Alexandria, and his heroic acts in saving the lives of several other soldiers(one who later became the President of France during the First Republic of 1827-70), Msr. Bonaparte is probably best known for having played a role in the failed Corsican Revolution of 1797. It certainly is too bad that he's a bit obscure outside of alternate history enthusiast circles and French history buffs, but what if?

(Also, that trilogy's full official title was: Vive La France! A More Stable and Successful Early French Republic.)

OOC: I imagined that the First Republic might eventually be replaced with another kingdom of sorts, but probably(at least at first!) one from a minor family with no connections, in any way, to the German states or any other of the major countries.

Hypothetical history, if anyone's interested:

1824-27: Provisional government
1827-70: First Republic (All men allowed to vote, multi-party democracy partly inspired by U.S. and Britain, remaining anti-Semitic laws overturned)
1870-97: Kingdom Restored (Some democracy remained, but rather limited. Ashkenazi Jews were largely restricted from living outside of Alsace-Lorraine, closest to Belgium, and a few other places.)
1897-08: Second Republic (Radical republic, universal suffrage for men and women, laws limiting Jewish settlement overturned, but with widespread anti-German prejudice.)
1908-11: Civil War (Economic Crisis, and the loss of several West African & West Indian colonies to Britain and Germany)
1911-12: Provisional government
1912-41: Third Kingdom (Democracy largely intact, but became increasingly authoritarian in the 1930s.)
1941-46: Military junta (Bourbon king tried to sign non-aggression treaty with authoritarian German Republic and *fascist Prussia, thus resulting in his overthrow)
1946-68: Fourth Kingdom (Royal families with German connections initially banned from taking power, then allowed back in, in 1958. Versailles Spring of '68 resulted in the final, so far, dissolution of the Monarchy)
1968-present: Fourth Republic (Major revision of government, liberalism thriving from 1969 onwards, peace treaty with Russia in 1989, same sex marriage recognized in 1996, prominent founding member of the European Association.)

Yeah, I don't know if we would have gotten Florida that early either. Maybe not until Spain lost almost the entire Western Hemisphere. We may have had to pay for the Western US instead of just grabbing it when Spain moved out.

IC: Thanks, in no small part, to the Mexican revolutionaries, I might add.

 

[Chris Oakley]

Apropos of the Corsican Revolution, I seem to recall that several of the top rebel commanders later escaped to Italy and took part in the Italian Unification Wars of the early 19th century. In OTL Italy was a unified independent country by 1825....how long would it have taken to achieve unification if neither the Corsican Revolution nor King George III's stroke had happened?

 

[CaliBoy1990]

Apropos of the Corsican Revolution, I seem to recall that several of the top rebel commanders later escaped to Italy and took part in the Italian Unification Wars of the early 19th century. In OTL Italy was a unified independent country by 1825....how long would it have taken to achieve unification if neither the Corsican Revolution nor King George III's stroke had happened?

It really does depend on the circumstances. IOTL, it certainly helped that many of the Italian states became rather concerned about Austrian domination early on, considering what began to happen in 1816-of course, it may be true that Italy did end up as a kingdom(unlike Greece to it's east, that never had a monarch, although that didn't stop it from becoming possibly the most successful nation in the southeast of Europe) for it's first 70 or so years of independence, but Republicanism was still too tempting to not try eventually, given the success of the post-Ottoman Greeks. And, unlike in France, it didn't take the Italians terribly long at all to get everything working properly(of course, members of the nobility are still allowed into the National Parliament, although the Austro-German families were banned until 1966. 20 years after the Global War ended.).

OOC: By the way, Italy was also a kingdom for many years after it's independence, IOTL.....yes, even after Mussolini took over.

 

[It's]

By now you've probably seen the History Channel's four-part DVD documentary series about the American Revolution. One segment that I found particularly interesting was the chapter on Disc 2 that recounts how King George III became so apoplectic while reading the Declaration of Independence that he suffered a fatal stroke and was dead within 36 hours; some historians say that event might have cost Britain the war right then and there. Certainly it triggered a major disruption to the British war effort as Parliament tried to resolve the succession crisis George III's death brought about. It also played a major role in the chain of events that led to Ontario becoming the 14th U.S. state after the war ended and the founding of the Republic of Quebec.

Now, just for grins and giggles, let's imagine George III doesn't have that fatal stroke in 1776. How much longer would the Revolutionary War(which in our timeline ended with the surrender of British troops at Savannah, Georgia in 1778) have gone on if George III had survived the reading? Would Ontario still be a U.S. state? Would the Republic of Quebec still exist? Could the British Army have found a way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in the American Revolutionary War, or would they have lost the war anyhow? And what would have been the fate of Benedict Arnold, the brilliant if somewhat controversial Continental Army commander who presided over the costly 1777 assault on the British garrison in New York City and was subsequently court-martialed for disregarding General Washington's orders not to begin the attack until American artillery had knocked out the British garrison's first two lines of defense?

Gee, shucks pardners, then there would have been no more "revolutionary" war because only KG3 wanted it and, as every American knows, the British monarchy in the late 18th century was an absolute (and malignant) dictatorship with the British parliament its unquestioning minion.

 

[It's]

Gee, shucks pardners, then there would have been no more "revolutionary" war because only KG3 wanted it and, as every American knows, the British monarchy in the late 18th century was an absolute (and malignant) dictatorship with the British parliament its unquestioning minion.

Correction:
Gee, shucks pardners, then there would have been a real long "revolutionary" war because only KG3 wanted it and, as every American knows, the British monarchy in the late 18th century was an absolute (and malignant) dictatorship, with the British parliament its unquestioning minion.

 

[West]

While a longer War probably means America takes longer to recover, it might lead to Centralization sooner. In OTL, it took the Spanish American clusterfuck and the near session of a number of states to drive home that something stronger than the Articles of Confederation was needed, a longer war might generate more awareness of the weakness of the articles. You might also actually have better relations between America and other European powers, they were certainly jumping in in 1777 already, but the relatively speedy end of the war meant that the contributions of the French were mostly Naval and moral (and of course scaring the British with the prospect that if they didn't cut their losses *now* they could lose a great deal more.)

our loss in florida was in the end nessary. It taught us our weakness's and led to the creation of the modern consitution that has lasted over two hundred years, and to the creation of the army and Navy that let us win the mexican american war.

It was a painful bloody lesson, but it was worth it, plus we eventally got florida later, during one of spain's nasty civil wars.

 

[Jonathan]

I don't foresee a career in politics though. Possible that Washington never becomes president?

Washington was always bound to be President, like in TTL, but with a longer drawn out war, would Benjamin Franklin live long enough to be the First President, with George Washington being the Second.