Historical Atlas of North America

[Atom]

My style of map making looks a lot like those found in modern Historical Atlases. So I decided to try and make an actual historical atlas, or at least a chapter on of one. It's a CSA victory TL, boring I know, but it's actually part of my continuing plan of take ATL, add socialist revolution, watch. Updates will come irregularly, and they will not be in chronological order. You've seen these before in the map thread. Away we go.

By the Turn of the 20th Century, North America had grown immensely from even even 50 years prior. With over 100 million people, it had become the greatest industrial power in the world, the factories of the Great Lakes and Eastern Seaboard churning out goods for the new mass market living in growing cities. New farming techniques and settlements stretched far across the interior, turning it into one vast breadbasket for the hungry world. All these things had created enormous wealth, and in the gleaming new steel soarers in New York, Boston, Chicago, Toronto and other cities, the continent looked forwards to a bright and peaceful future after a turbulent century.

This was an illusion. Away from the city center, the continent roiled with conflict. Between nation and nation, race and race, and class and class. Growth had given its bounty to a select few, the "gilded" men of the most democratic continent of the world. Astor, Carnegie, Esperson, Martin, Vanderbilt, the great mean of the era, wealthy beyond all understanding. The wars of the last 40 years were not done either, the Second Confederate-Union War only seven years old. Mexico was still under the thumb of a foreign Emperor, and a French Colony in all but name. Radical union organizers - the Federation of America Labor, the Unified Workers of the World, the Tommys, and many others - sought to end the traditional capitalist system, how much and what with were greatly debated. The Confederacy still fought to keep its slaves down, and to reunify after the crisis of '93. New Orleans was as ever a monument to the inability of America to settle, with the British and French both increasingly tired of keeping it afloat.

The United States was clearly the major power of the Continent. It had become one of the greatest if not the greatest industrial power in the world, on-par with Britain and Germany. However, with the rise of President Hanna, and the Bourbon Crew, the USA teetered on the edge of complete tyranny. New Unionism as an ideology was heavily damaged, with Theodore Roosevelt banished to the Badlands and stringent new censorship rules placed on all publications. Pinks had become a common site on city streets, their unsleeping eye a symbol of fear from the lowest beggar to the highest Industrialist. The Democratic Party was the only party remaining, opposed only by the quiescent New Unionists and increasingly by radical socialists. Hardy, Debs, Parsons may have all been in jail, but many others still remained, organizing strikes, disrupting the capitalist system, fighting in massed battles with the Pinks. And in a small hovel in Chicago, five men signed the charter for the "American Marxist Party" and plotted revolution.

The Confederacy under President Braxton was finally quiet. Texas remained in the Confederation, if specially privileged; black slaves still worked in the fields; and the small elite could finally rest easy. The world economy was recovering, and if the old plantations were still making far less money then antebellum, they were at least free from Yankee Opression, and if the price of that was that even plantation owners need fear of Internal Security, then most could handle it. The South remained what it had been before '93 (if smaller), a poor corrupt non-democratic state obsessed with its Northern neighbor.

British North America had also grown rapidly, and now stretched from coast to coast, much of it untied in the new "Dominion of Canada." Increasingly worried about its southern neighbors, it breathed easier knowing that the USA and the Confederacy seemed to have finally sheathed their swords. Canada's new found growth (Southern Ontario had blossomed into an industrial center) gave it increasing freedom as Britain became increasingly concerned with the growth of German power and licked it's defeat in the Boer Wars.

Guerilla activity continued in Mexico's mountains, although even without French soldiers patrolling the country, Augustin II remained safely ensconced in Mexico City. Mexico remained resentful of the Confederate betrayal in '93, but was too poor and too disunited to present any great power. French monopolies and trade treaties had stunted Mexico's economic growth, and Augustin II seemed in no hurry to upset his patrons in Paris.

The question of slavery loomed above this all. The Confederacy still kept millions of men in bondage, even if London protested regularly. The Confederate reinforcements that stretched across the border were enormous, miles of barbed wire and machine gun emplacements to prevent any black from even thinking of escape. The Union blacks, scattered across the country as the result of the Resettlement and Integration policies, were beginning to organize, led by Dubois, as radical anti-Confederate groups. New Orleans worried that its precious and limited freedom, granted by British and French protectors, would soon end, both London and Paris mentioning how expensive it was to maintain a force in New Orleans and too far from the Union to be saved should war begin.

This was the situation in North America in 1900, and up to 1905. Only a select few saw the truth: Revolution was coming, and it would change the course of American history.

 

[Atom]

Map..........

 

[Atom]

Next one. To clarify, this is a map of hypothetical Confederate aims in the invasion, not the actual CSA occupation.

What exactly President Braxton hoped to achieve with his invasion of the confused United States is unclear. Certainly, Braxton's main desire was to prove his still nascent leadership, and finally defeat the United States, something none of his predecessors had managed. Braxton seems to have imagined territorial gains and some sort of fugitive slave deal like in Free New Orleans, gained after a rapid war against the New Union government in Washington D.C.

However, the absolute collapse of the USA's army at the battle of the Potomac, and the subsequent Confederate sweep to the borders of Philadelphia, and the concurrent movement westwards and northwards into Kansas and nearing Chicago and Toledo, let unforeseen possibilities into Braxton regime's eyes. The capture of President Phillips almost immediately, and his subsequent willingness to negotiate for his freedom, let the Richmond dream of Empire. Although some elements (notably the Alabama firebrand Williamson) called for the complete annexation of the US, Braxton and his administration rightly viewed this as ridiculous. Instead, Braxton seems to have imagined greater territorial gains. The best understanding of these comes from a long telegram sent from Confederate Secretary of State Horatio Yelverton to the British ambassador. In this he outlines substantive territorial gains from the Pacific Coast all the way to Delaware. The exact status of these aims is confused, certainly Emperor Augustin I of Mexico believed that the Confederates had given him tacit agreement for his annexation of the area shaded in green below. The British also expressed significant displeasure at the movement into the Pacific and the end of L'Ville Libre de Nouveau Orleans (although since they had abandoned New Orleans earlier that year, and pushed the French to accept the Confederate invasion, how much of this was bluster is unclear). Finally, since Richmond and the Confederate archives burned in 1912, many records are lost, making this a difficult question to answer.

In the end, the Confederate invasion did not establish a new Southern Empire, nor secure Braxton's dictatorial rule. By invading early on and seizing the New Union government, a government which in its surrender to the hated, racist, and tyrannical Confederates immediately delegitimized it in the eyes of Northerners, supported only those powers which had clearly predicted it: the American Socialists and the Mormons. The Socialist government in Chicago was able to unite the disparate Military Syndicates of Denver, Pittsburgh, Toledo, New York and many to others by appealing to the defense of the homeland against the traitorous enemy. For the American worker this became not only a battle against the Capitalist class, but against the slaveholder, against those who would remove liberty and make them no better than the black human cattle of the South. The only important figure who might possibly have been willing to negotiate, Blue American leader Theodore Roosevelt, felt deeply betrayed by the invasion as Yelverton had told him that there was no invasion planned merely a month before.

The Confederate defeat at the hands of the Revolutionary Army of the United States at Philadelphia in December of 1908 began the long red campaign against the Confederates. Jackson, Ironton, Louisville, Williamston, all were Confederate defeats at the hand of the Industrial North. Even with the British invasion from Canada against the Socialist menace, feelings in Richmond became increasingly apocalyptic. The Confederate western advance was also halted soon after Yelverton's telegram, with the Mormon regiments moving against Augustin I's regiments, and Roosevelt's "Rough Riders" rising as the last great cavalry force in world history retaking much of the Great Plains. Braxton's eventual death in a Richmond bunker at the approach of a Red Negro guerillas in 1912 is often attributed to this Confederate overreach, and even the eventual end of the Confederacy itself...

 

[Atom]

Map------------

 

[Atom]

This next one is the second to last map chronologically I intend to make. Speculation is encouraged.

With the defeat of Gen. Roosevelt in late 1914, the only major native resistance to the Red Regime was Deseret. Deseret's stunning victories against the Confederate States and Imperial Mexico now lay far back in its past, with regiments having fallen back from the Gulf of California in the South and most of Western Idaho lost to Socialist forces. Still, Salt Lake City remained one of the most dangerous foes that the Worker's armies would face. Utah regiments were almost entirely veterans, and had now become some of the world's foremost alpine combatants. Almost every soldier had fought in either the drive to the Sea, or the defense of Mormon settlements in Colorado or Idaho. Their commanders were experienced, if not by formal training at one of the old American military colleges, by having fought several different campaigns. They were also gifted with a fanatical religious motivation, with every Deseret soldier not only a defender of his home, but also a defender of the faith. Many Mormons saw the coming war in explicitly apocalyptic terms.

All these advantages were however undone by several distinct disadvantages, readily apparent to the Deseret High Command in Salt Lake. Firstly, Deseret was tired. Eight years of war, even with the armistice of 1913-1914, had ruined the Mormon population. The Mormon fighting population had shrunk drastically, something even the high Mormon birthrate was simply incapable of making up. New women's auxiliary units and the acceptance of every younger fighters did not make up the loss of thousands of men throughout the American West. Mormon leaders knew that any war of attrition was unlikely to end in their favor. Further, the Deseret Army was fatally under equipped. With the defeat of the British and Mormon attempts to control the Great Northern Railway, and the retreat from the Gulf of California, the Mormon state was entirely surrounded by Socialist forces. Although the British had managed to help Deseret set up some small factories for the production of heavier weapons, Deseret units were almost entirely without any artillery or weapons heavier than a standard rifle. Mormon industrialists had managed to set up successful small arms factories, something that would prove critical in the Years of Resistance, but this led them to be fatally outmatched time and time again by well equipped Worker's Armies, equipped by the vast armament industries of the Midwest, the East, California. Finally, even with the religious motivation, Deseret was fraying internally. Eight years of war was simply too long for societies to remain fully committed to any conflict, particularly when the last four years had been an unceasing array of retreats and entrenchments. Mormon captured labor, drawn from throughout the West to replace Mormom workers lost Mormons in agricultural and industrial work, saw the Mormons as an alien force, unchristian and dangerous. Deseret ruled over extensive non-Mormon populations, particularly in Idaho, Arizona, and Colorado, who were inimically opposed to Mormon political power and welcomed Socialist expansion. The Eyes of Zion were kept busy in the waning days of Deseret, their black cloaks an ever present reminder of the eye of the state on those who would stray from the path of righteousness.

Deseret commanders expected the main socialist attack to come from over the Wasatch Range, the small mountain barrier between Socialist held Nebraska and Salt Lake City, with the Socialists hoping for a death blow by taking out Deseret command. Thus, Deseret command had built an extensive series of fortifications all accross the range, dynamiting every major road and railway, and collapsing several passes entirely. The Socialist regime had kept track of these fortifications, and thus moved to an entirely different plan. Under the command of General "Big Bill" Hardy, the Worker's Mountain Army moved across from Colorado and over into Utah in the Early Summer of 1916. Caught by surprise, Mormon militias rushed to attack Socialist forces but were decisively defeated at the battle of Modo. Mormon reinforcements quickly arrived and continued a harrying actions on Socialist forces as they sped across Eastern Utah. More Mormon forces could not be brought up from the south due to movements of the Worker's SouthWest Army from New Mexico into Mormon held territory along the Colorado. Mormon forces scored decisive defeats due to poor planning on the Socialist forces part, marching directly over the incredibly hot Painted Desert without adequate supplies. However, this did pin down Mormon forces in the area, and did not distract the majority of the WSW Arm from it's main goal of supporting Mexican Revolutionaries. Navajo war bands, encouraged by the Socialist government, also attacked Mormon small holdings in the Southwest, scoring several victories and reclaiming land lost to white settlers. Mormon forces rushed southwards from Salt Lake City, abandoning the Wasatch fortifications to meet the WMon Army along the heartland of Mormonism. However, the sheer size of the Socialist forces continually wore down the Mormon forces giving them a string of defeats as the Red forces marched North. They were helped by forces from the Worker's NorthWest Army who prevented Mormon forces in Southern Idaho from helping defend Salt Lake City. Scattered raids and counter raids continued in Nevada, where small Mormon homesteaders fought non-Mormon forces, although without any decisive effects on other fields.

By July, the situation for Deseret looked grim. Socialist forces advanced onto Salt lake City, and the last ditch efforts to stop them at Lehi failed. British forces in the North, unwilling to jeopardize the uneasy peace they had reached with Socialist forces after the frightening days of the Ontario Campaign, did not mobilize against the Revolutionary Regime to save Deseret as many had expected. With the full might of the Socialists directed at Deseret, there was no escape. red forces entered and burned Salt Lake City on 28.7.1916, destroying the Temple, and ending eight years of Mormon freedom. Strong guerrilla resistance against Socialist forces would continue well into the 1920s, but for all intents and purposes the war within the USA was finished. Peace talks at Oslo would continue for several months between the new Socialist USA, Britain, The Worker's Republic of Mexico and Imperial Mexico, but all major fighting was finished.

 

[Atom]

I've never made a campaign map before, so any feedback would be appreciated. It took ages to get just the elevation shadows from behind.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

Interesting stuff there, Atom. I can't wait to read the rest.

 

[B_Munro]

As usual, some really excellent work. Very professional.

Bruce

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

This is incredibly fascinating.

Is this the actual TL, or just small snippets, because i would so like to see more of this.

 

[Color-Copycat]

Nice maps

 

[The Ubbergeek]

You should work with Jello Biafra and his Red america timeline, dude. Your maps would help.

 

[Atom]

Thanks for all of the compliments.

This is incredibly fascinating.

Is this the actual TL, or just small snippets, because i would so like to see more of this.

Small snippets. It's one chapter of a historical atlas from an alternate world where the CSA won. I hope to eventually have the entire chapter available.

You should work with Jello Biafra and his Red america timeline, dude. Your maps would help.

I have never actually looked at the that timeline, and I think it's rather different, if in the same mode. My focus is on how a CSA would effect American socialist movements (I think it's actually based off of some comment in some Map Thread where someone posited that a *USA where there was a CSA might define itself more and more in opposition to the CSA, being less racist, and I ran with that). A lot of the impetus for the creation of the Socialist USA (which is called the USA in the TL, they ram through a bunch of Constitutional Amendments, I need to figure out a way to refer to it) is because of the CSA invasion in 1906, which decapitated the "New Union" Government (a *Fascist movement that developed in response to the one party Democratic state of late 1890s America) except for Roosevelt, and thus made the Reds the most effective opposition. More updates will explain, sorry.

 

[Lord Grattan]

Excellent maps!

 

[Thoresby]

Cool idea and nice maps.

 

[LSCatilina]

Suscribed for excellence.

 

[Thande]

Ubercool, both maps and thread idea. You're right, they do look very atlas-like.

EDIT: Also, your first map somewhat reminds me of a similar concept I did here, interesting to see different takes on the themes of 'splitting up the Plains into fewer states because the Republicans aren't in power'.

 

[Atom]

Ubercool, both maps and thread idea. You're right, they do look very atlas-like.

EDIT: Also, your first map somewhat reminds me of a similar concept I did here, interesting to see different takes on the themes of 'splitting up the Plains into fewer states because the Republicans aren't in power'.

Interesting. The main difference is that you give all of Idaho to Montana (Idaho is an unlikely name, as it appears to have been made up), while I gave bits of it to Washington. I think that was a proposal (mine, that is) in OTL in 1887 (well, actually the South would have gone to Nevada. Interesting idea that. Would radically change Nevada as a state). Are Utah's are a little different, but that's to be expected, the exact shape of Utah territory was always a little iffy, as the Mormons had the numbers for a state long before they had the political will. Super long Nebraska is weird but the only logical thing to do.

 

[Atom]

New update. I rather like how this one turned out.

A clarification that people have asked:

Eastern Kentucky is under CSA control due to slight CSA gains in the war of 1893 in that area. I am well aware that the center of anti-CAS sentiment was in Appalachia. *Eastern Tennesseans are also well aware.

The symbol of the Democrats in ATL is the rooster, as it was in some parts of the USA throughout the 19th and 20th century. Harper's Magazine never publishes their comics with the resurrection of the Democratic jackass, butterflies etc.

... Widespread strikes and mass protests ensued in the spring and summer of 1905 as the snow began to thaw from the Union. The serious effects of the banking crash of 1903 had not alleviated within a year as President Hanna had repeatedly stated to the press, and this combined with the effective end of legal multi-party politics in the United States by 1900 pushed the situation to a crisis point. Labor strikes and violence became prominent by spring, prompting widespread fear in the ruling classes of America.

Union action led the most important and widespread disturbances in 1905. The AFL was generally uninterested in labor activism, as they had been bought out by Democratic connections, so most strikes were done by smaller unaffiliated Unions, usually under the mantle of industrial unionism. Railroad and longshoremen strikes were frequent during the year with the biggest in the fall of 1905 paralyzing the entirety of the United States for several weeks. Steelworkers across the industrial heart of America staged violent strikes demanding an increase in wages and recognition of Unions, with the city of Pittsburgh almost a war zone for several days in June. Thousands of small trade unions also struck in almost every city in the United States, if only consisting of a few men for a few days. The greatest labor unrest took place in the traditional heart of American labor unrest: the mining industry. By the fall of 1905, the Western Federation of Miners had managed to stage protests in the Rocky Mountains, and the Mine Workers of America (officially banned by order of the Federal Government in any state with a coal mining industry) had declared a mass strike. The MWA managed to ally with the Union of American Railway Workers under the banner of the Industrial Congress (an umbrella organization for unions in the Industrial unionism movement) and declared a blanket restriction on the selling of coal. Limited coal amounts were shipped on special trains was delivered to poor areas determined by local UARW and IC organizational heads. Emboldened by the Federal Government's inability to prevent this limited syndicalism, IC leaders in cities from Sacrament to New York declared a general strike as part of a popular front of leftist groups. Mass protests with demands from a limited tax decrease, to the restoration of American Political Rights and free elections, to the impeachment of the entire Hannah Administration, to the overthrow of the Capitalist System.

Pinkertons had already engaged in violent conflict with various labor groups throughout the year, in cities such as Pittsburgh and Cleveland and in the massacres of Coal Creek and Uniontown, but the mass Industrial Congress experiment with syndicalism and general strikes unleashed a wave of attacks previously unseen. Military units stationed on the CSA frontier were moved north to act as strike breakers, which they did violently in many American cities. In several, such as New York and Detroit, IC General Strikes faded away faced with stiff resistance, if not before achieving several days success. In other areas, such as Chicago and Pittsburgh, local socialists had managed to seize several arms supplies and fought back - if poorly - engaging federal troops and Pinkertons in running street battles. Miner resistance in Colorado and Appalachia was particularly fierce, with Miner's gaining several successes against Federal troops and several towns razed.

Concurrently, the continuing deflation of the Early 20th Century and the rapid increase in agricultural output worldwide hit American farmers particularly hard. Already hurting from bad years in 1903 and 1904, american farmers organized themselves into Agrarian Parties and engaged in their own resistance to what the unresponsive and city dominated Hanna Administration. Agrarian resistance took many forms, with some simply forming cooperatives and machine collectives, but many engaged in violent attacks against what they perceived as enemies: banks, local Democratic Leaders. The ability of Agrarians to work with the IC was hamepred by mutual distrust, a feeling that would become increasingly important as time went on.

The onset of snow in 1905 dampened the enthusiasm for protesting, and Federal Troops managed to regain control over most of the USA by December (with some exceptions). The damage however had already been done. Violent action had radicalized many protesters, and Communist lead movements had gained strength against those of more moderate minded socialists. Violent Anarchists active on the East Coast had assassinated several important city leaders, and more philosophically minded anarcho-syndicalists had begun to work on how to organize the next round of syndics for the production of what they saw as the coming war. IC leaders had been arrested en mass, allowing smaller groups lower in the IC, like the American Marxist Party to seize control in the secret "Emergency Congress" of December. Thousands of Democratic Party Offices had been destroyed and burned by protesters, shaking the confidence of the Democratic Regime, and an untold number of suspected Pinkerton Agents had been lynched (or even tarred and feathered) in the streets of America.

As President Hannah prepared to resign in favor of a "Grand Coalition" comprised mostly of New Unionist Leaders, an action which split the IC in a moderate and radical camp, one thing was clear: the alumnus snows in Washington may have turned the city a comfortable peaceful white, but a second revolution was coming to the USA.

Figure 2, below presents several of the most important protests. Thousands of smaller ones were present, but simply could not be shown here.

 

[Faeelin]

This is cool; my one thought is how could this CSA ever be strong enough to challenge the USA?

 

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mappety mappety