Dixieland: The Country of Tomorrow, Everyday (yet another Confederate TL)
- Thread starter TastySpam
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How aggressively based can the Qing get
I guess this is the universe returning to the center of the based-cringe axis after Confederate Bosnia
I guess this is the universe returning to the center of the based-cringe axis after Confederate Bosnia
At this point, WW2 will probably be Britain, China, CSA, Italy, North Germany, Ottoman Empire, and Spain vs everyone else.
Wait, why do Japan and East Korea see themselves as a Second and Third China the way the Russians see themselves a Rome. I can understand the Russian given that they share a religion with the byzantines and also had a byzantine princess marry in. On the other hand while Korea and Japan were definitely influenced by China they also saw themselves as distinct entities, especially Japan which wasn't even part of the tributary system.
There's a linguistic nuance that doesn't really carry into English.
ITL, the Joseon Dynasty did buy into the idea that the Manchus extinguished "Chinese civilization", leaving Korea as its last bastion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojunghwa
There is at least some distinction in most East Asian languages, albeit heavily blurred and inconsistent, between the nationstate of China and "Chinese civilization" in a general cultural sense. Hilariously, the Chinese term for general Sinosphere (汉字文化圈 - or chinese character cultural sphere) is a loanword from Japanese.
In the same sense I guess that Rome refers to a literal city, but the Second Rome considered themselves very Greek (even as the heirs of Rome) and the Third Rome considered itself very Slavic. The Russians surely didn't imagine they were Italians or Greeks!
In the Imperial Japanese era, this reached rather amusing heights where Japanese pan-Asian nationalists, as well as a significant chunk of Japanese propaganda, depicted Japan as defending Chinese civilization from...China. If you watch the famously memetic "the Jews fear the samurai" video, there's actually a moment where the guy (a far-right activist) argues that China isn't actually Chinese because of Mongol/Manchurian influence and that Japan is the real heir of the Han, Tang, Song, etc. dynasties. Which isn't that uncommon of a view in the Japanese far-right.
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I get your point about Korea. But Japan and Vietnam both distinguish themselves as proudly not Chinese and resisting Chinese domination. The only real Chinese person, and this is from a legend likely, that ties into Japan is someone named Xu Fu who supposedly landed in Japan. As for the Japanese far-right, I don't know what they think, but that is surprising given their own level of racism against Chinese people that they would consider themselves as the heir of those dynasties when at most the interaction was likely trade and influence.
Probably the funniest
Dai Viet did the same thing that Joseon Korea did.
Zhu Zhiyu, one of the most prominent philosophers in the late Ming, fled the Manchu conquest to the Tokugawa court, where his students more or less produced the vast majority of the Edo period's most influential philosophical works. In particular, his interpretation of Wang Yangming thought is a big reason why Japanese political thought diverged so heavily from China - there was a massive embrace of Wang Yangming's "neoconfucian" thought in Japan, whereas he was much more obscure in China and was only "rediscovered" by Chinese scholars who visited Japan in the 19th century.
One tenet that Japanese nationalists took from Wang Yangming was his belief in innate understanding, because they literally argued that the Japanese people inherently had a better innate understanding of classical Chinese philosophy, thought, and virtue than actual people in China (which was shown by the "fall of China" to the invading Manchu, as contrasted with the Japanese defeat of the Mongols).
I would also have a strong suspicion that a British person's belief in "is Britain the best heir of Roman civilization" would correlates negatively with their opinion on modern Italians lol...
Dai Viet did the same thing that Joseon Korea did.
Zhu Zhiyu, one of the most prominent philosophers in the late Ming, fled the Manchu conquest to the Tokugawa court, where his students more or less produced the vast majority of the Edo period's most influential philosophical works. In particular, his interpretation of Wang Yangming thought is a big reason why Japanese political thought diverged so heavily from China - there was a massive embrace of Wang Yangming's "neoconfucian" thought in Japan, whereas he was much more obscure in China and was only "rediscovered" by Chinese scholars who visited Japan in the 19th century.
One tenet that Japanese nationalists took from Wang Yangming was his belief in innate understanding, because they literally argued that the Japanese people inherently had a better innate understanding of classical Chinese philosophy, thought, and virtue than actual people in China (which was shown by the "fall of China" to the invading Manchu, as contrasted with the Japanese defeat of the Mongols).
I would also have a strong suspicion that a British person's belief in "is Britain the best heir of Roman civilization" would correlates negatively with their opinion on modern Italians lol...
I believe the British belief comes from their snobbery and disdain of all non-British people in general.
Brilliant as always. Original, creative, and ever so divergent from our own-- but still believable.
So, the next Great War looks like it's shaping up to be:
Russia-France-Japan, maybe Austria and/or the United States versus Britain-Qing China-Ottoman Turkey. Perhaps Spain, depending on how bad Hispano-Japanese relations are when the sparks fly. I can't remember if the Roman Union is still around ITTL (my apologies, it's been a while), but if so I could see them allying with the UK.
Now, the elephant in the room is North Germany. Which would they side with here (or might they simply opt for neutrality and profit from peace?) What about the Confederate States? Apologies for the brain spill and I eagerly await more....
So, the next Great War looks like it's shaping up to be:
Russia-France-Japan, maybe Austria and/or the United States versus Britain-Qing China-Ottoman Turkey. Perhaps Spain, depending on how bad Hispano-Japanese relations are when the sparks fly. I can't remember if the Roman Union is still around ITTL (my apologies, it's been a while), but if so I could see them allying with the UK.
Now, the elephant in the room is North Germany. Which would they side with here (or might they simply opt for neutrality and profit from peace?) What about the Confederate States? Apologies for the brain spill and I eagerly await more....
The Union of Rome is more of a semi-splinter from the Catholic Church. It's around in the sense that it's the officially recognized Catholic Church in Italy/North Germany, but it's not around in the sense that from the start, not a lot of people actually supported it (seen as a very inauthentic vehicle for anticatholicism by most Catholics, including those in Italy). Basically the only people who actually like it are German pan-nationalists, liberal English Catholics, Dutch Catholics, and whoever likes the Italian government I guess (not most Italians, who are abstaining from Italian elections!)
Thanks for correcting me there. I assume relations between Italy and the Church are still abysmal at best?
Extremely bad. Even worse than OTL.
Non expedit | Indulgences, Papal Bull, Excommunication
Non expedit, (Latin: “it is not expedient”), a late 19th- and early 20th-century policy of the Roman Catholic church that prohibited its Italian members from participating in politics. The non expedit dramatically emphasized that Pope Pius IX and his successors refused to recognize the newly formed
www.britannica.com
The non-expedit has been extended to even voting in local elections or working for the Italian government, including the army. A lot of bishops are probably low-key endorsing tax evasion
Speaking of Catholics, I wonder what the status of Catholic immigrants to the New World is at this point, as in how they are faring compared to OTL when many came to the USA.
Has it led to devout Catholics in Italy ITTL being people who often want to see the pre-1861 order of Italy divided into small independent states restored?
Probably chilling in Mexico, Brazil, Central America, Chile, Argentina, etc. America's loss is their gain.
I wouldn't go that far. Even if they oppose the Italian state, most don't probably want legit partition besides some angry Sicilians or Sardinians or something. Been too many decades with a national education system, media, etc. Italy is still a nation - just one where most people think their own government is illegitimate.
True, though it would always be hilarious for some foreign power dealing with a defeated Italy to overestimate support for such a partition and try to partition with catastrophic results.
So probably not too different from OTL except in higher quantities.
Chapter 114 - The Confederate Crisis and Presidential Election of 1903
The Confederate Crisis and Presidential Election of 1903
Patrick Cleburne was expected to be the man to beat. By 1903, the popularity of the Longstreet administration had fallen significantly, even as Haiti seemed to be inching closer to a "victory." First, prohibition wasn't actually very popular. Although significant health gains resulted in the Confederacy, an explosion of crime was blamed on President Longstreet, and the simple reality was that people liked their alcohol. Second, Longstreet's civil service reform was touted as a way to end the Mahone-Cleburne practice of simply rewarding prominent African-Americans with federal positions in return for them corralling significant shares of the black vote for the winning candidate. Although it largely ended this practice for a large number of civil service positions, Longstreet simply pivoted to rewarding his prominent black supporters with political appointments. This offended both racists and anti-corruption activists (a partially, but not entirely overlapping group). The midterm elections of 1900 brought the largest class of black representatives in Congress in history, albeit all in majority-black districts and heavily underrepresented (0 Senators, and only 7% of the House of Representatives despite being over 42% of the population). Regardless, this was seen as an apocalyptic sign by some elements of Confederate society, who constantly began whispering of a "negro takeover."
The third and final issue emanated from Haiti, but not in the way expected. In short, the invasion of Haiti had essentially demolished the island, including the ability of Haiti to pay the French indemnity, the payment owed by Haiti to France in the early 1800's in exchange for diplomatic recognition. The Confederates asserted that because Haitian independence had been extinguished, the indemnity was similarly extinguished. The French claimed otherwise, that Confederate annexation of Haiti meant they had acquired Haiti's debts. Longstreet, once beloved by Confederate big business, soon lost their confidence. To settle this issue, the Confederates submitted to the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, but much to their dismay, the Confederacy lost. However, the Confederates realized they didn't really have much funding lying around to pay off the French, especially in an election year.
The only thing that really prevented Cleburne's victory in 1903 was quite simple - he died of old age. This set his party in a panic as they had to rally behind a new figure, which proved difficult since there weren't many living generals still around and it was believed that you couldn't beat an old independence war general with a random citizen. Some leaders settled upon Joseph Wheeler, perhaps the last remaining independence war general not currently running for President, but most of Cleburne's supporters found him too economically liberal (in the non-interventionist sense) and rallied behind him, if at all, with no enthusiasm. Longstreet had endorsed his Vice President, Edward Porter Alexander, and the stage seemed set again for one last presidential election between old generals.
However, the French response blindsided the Confederates. Viewing the Confederacy as a rogue actor, the French Empire declared that they would maintain the integrity of the international financial order by blockading the Confederacy until they folded and agreed to pay off the indemnity. Running for President a third time, Representative Ben Tillman lambasted the Confederate for erratic "anti-business policies", proclaiming an alternate scheme where he would harvest Haitians into forced labor, using their wages to pay off the Haitian indemnity to France. Tillman's reputation as a fire-breathing populist made his outreach to Confederate big business not entirely adopted, and although some abandoned Longstreet for Tillman, others rejected the "Tillman Compromise" as looking something a lot like slavery, which they were on paper at least supposed to be against now. Smelling blood, Tillman and his supporters announced the creation of the first outright, explicit political party in the Confederate States of America, the "Progressive Party of the Confederate States of America", which nominated Tillman for President and a well-known industrialist, Julian Carr, as his vice-president (to smooth Tillman's fire-breathing reputation).
However, the Confederates were not exactly as unprepared as they were in the Spanish-Confederate War. The Confederate Navy, largely built by British shipyards, while not matching the French fleet in any meaningful sense, was not a pushover. Combined with a network of forts that were actually built to be effective at deterring a blockade this time, French naval officers quickly realized that a bloodless blockade of the Confederate States was looking more difficult. They certainly had enough firepower to do so, but not without likely sparking a war. President Hay was inclined to settle this diplomatically, but one member of his cabinet, Albert J. Beveridge, the Navy Secretary, went remarkably public with his call for war to defend the Confederate States, arguing that the U.S. Navy had to activate to react to his huge violation of the Monroe Doctrine (which was technically never revoked). Hay, aging, dying, and increasingly an absentee President (due to the death of his beloved son), largely allowed Beveridge to drive the public diplomacy, as the U.S. Navy mobilized to patrol the Confederate shoreline. Eventually, the French backed down and agreed to a compromise by the Americans, whereupon a consortium of Wall Street banks would purchase Haiti's custom houses and pay off the French with 40% of the tarriff duties. Because the Haitian economy was in utter shambles and imported almost nothing besides humanitarian aid, this was seen as a huge humiliation by the French public once the details were let out.
In France, a group of nationalist thinkers such as Maurice Barres founded the League of Patriots, lambasting the French monarchy for its weak-handed policies towards the Confederate States. Napoleon IV was loathe to spark a war, a fact known to most of the French public, which was criticism so specifically attacked the Emperor. The Confederate crisis of 1903 was seen as perhaps the gravest humiliation to France since Napoleon IV's similarly dovish policies in Algeria. Although the constitutional reforms early in his life had quieted most liberals, again, it became clear to many that the French political system was remarkably bad at actually representing its thinkers. In contrast, Beveridge's reputation massively exploded in the United States, which was convenient for the ambitious politician as the Republican Party began asking who ought to replace Hay.
In the Confederacy, this was seen as a true triumph, another triumph after the "victory" in Haiti. Longstreet's flagging popularity surged, and in the subsequent elections, his Vice Presidential candidate, Edward P. Alexander, beat all expectations by actually coming in first (despite Longstreet's approval beginning the year at below 20%). However, he was unable to actually clinch a majority in the electoral college, pushing the election into the House of Representatives. This proved a hope to the forces behind Ben Tillman, who for the first time actually won a state (his home state of South Carolina, albeit with a small plurality as black voters split evenly between Wheeler and Alexander), which could in theory have catapulted him to the Presidency. This was not to be, as both major political blocs quickly united to deny Tillman a chance. Eventually, a deal was brokered between the "Prohibitionists" and the "Nationals", where national prohibition was to be replaced with a state-owned alcohol industry which would generate additional revenue for the government, in exchange for Porter and his Vice President, Ben Hooper, being confirmed by Congress.
Tillman quickly lambasted both blocs, calling them "one of the same clique." Which was increasingly not inaccurate. The "Compromise of 1903" severely weakened the political divisions between the old Longstreet and Cleburne blocs, as the two increasingly coalesced into one political bloc aimed at the maintenance of the state quo in Confederate politics, a status quo which Tillman and other 'Progressives' strenuously opposed. However, they were not the only opponents - some think they weren't going far enough. The 1903 election also saw the first presidential run of the socialist candidate Albert Parsons, though he did not win any states and only garnered 3.4% of the popular vote.
I’m surprised that the black Confederate population is allowed to vote at all. And with how the USA, CSA, and France all interacted here, it would not surprise me if the WW1 analogue became a three-way conflict instead of the traditional two-way war.