Piggybacking on eschaton's comment, why doesn't Florida have as many blacks as OTL?
Malê Rising
- Thread starter Jonathan Edelstein
- Start date
Because it has been a white supremacist hellhole, that's why! Presumably most of the difference between OTL and here is because more African-descended people have been, um, persuaded not to go there or stay there. And presumably some of it is from people who for whatever reason did not get the word, did not listen, or simply were chosen for example, and are permanent though uncounted Florida residents now--six feet under.
The fact that it is only an incremental difference from OTL should give us pause to reflect on how much of this sort of terrorism there was OTL in Florida as well. But there's just a bit more of it here.
In the text you can see that Florida is a particularly harsh and stubborn case. Why that should be rather than some other state being the worst is a slightly different question. But consider that Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia can hardly hope to prosper if they were to drive all their African-descended people out completely, but white Floridians might possibly conceive such notions. Perhaps the old history of Florida, whereby it was once a Spanish-owned refuge for fugitive slaves, and then Andrew Jackson (long before he was President!) raised an army to threaten to invade it-I believe did invade, in alleged hot pursuit of certain slaves--which persuaded the Spanish to sell it to the USA--perhaps memories and social reflexes go back that far, to the white invasion and suppression of peoples who presumed to take freedom for themselves. Just why is the Dixie part of Florida so extremist--so right wing, so ready to shoot people? I don't know exactly, perhaps these ancient historic roots have to do with it, perhaps it has to do with the sort of fly-by-night mentality that goes along with being a tourist destination--but it's what Florida is infamously like.
I spent most of my childhood there, off and on, and I didn't notice how nasty it could be--but then I didn't get out much. I'm sure my brother could tell me stories. Meanwhile one day I picked up some statistics and learned that Bay County was the worst consolidated metropolitan region in the US in the category of wives either threatened with firearms or actually shot by their husbands.
Ah, Florida!
You can take credit for the fact that I mentioned it in the American update: the development of broadcast radio has always been something that I assumed to be happening in the background, but we're getting to a point where its political and cultural effects will be significant to the story. There will also be some mention of its effects during this decade in Africa and Asia, where it's starting to penetrate to rural areas (albeit much more in some countries than in others).
OK, didn't expect the Deep South to end up like past-few-months-Ukraine!
Remember how much violent resistance there was to civil rights in OTL - and then imagine it being enacted in the 1920s. Even TTL's 1920s - in fact, maybe even more so in TTL's 1920s, because the Jim Crow regimes have had to crack down harder and are more afraid of what will happen if they let go. Now add the fact that the blacks are armed too, and they have places they can go for support. The miracle is probably that it wasn't worse.
Certainly. Darrow staked his reputation on the intervention, and its result was far from a foregone conclusion at the time: many people wondered whether the United States had just bought itself a generation-long guerrilla war. Fortunately, most Klansman types aren't the kind to go bush and fight the regular army, but no one could be sure.
The intervention was also criticized as a Federal power grab - which, of course, it was. It was done in a good cause this time, but there's no guarantee of that always being the case.
There was that, but the sense of siege pushed tactical disagreements to the background - a member of the Citizens' League might disapprove of the armed groups' methods, but he also knew he might have to seek protection from them if things got hairy.
After the Federal intervention, and especially after 1927 when the army had established effective control on the ground, the disagreement became much sharper and swung in favor of the nonviolent groups.
BTW, the term "Turkish marriage" in TTL is derived from the Turkish baths where the turn-of-the-century gay scene took place, although stereotypes about the Ottomans had something to do with it too.
And it's looking like the US will have a proper leftist party.
Sort of. Farmer-Labor is broadly social-democratic, but it's a big-tent party which has a centrist wing and which can sometimes lean conservative on social issues. The Progressives are more reliably to the left on cultural matters but not always on economics. And the Socialists are doctrinally left, but they're fringe.
There's a politically significant left in TTL's United States, but it isn't always to be found in the same place.
That's certainly true, and also, the clock hasn't turned all the way back. The Progressives are still relevant in congressional politics and have the potential to be kingmakers in a close presidential election, and while the Republicans and Democrats have become a CDU/CSU combination, they do still have their differences. Not to mention that other political movements may still arise that don't fit comfortably in either of the major parties: I've mentioned that environmentalism may become such a movement.
American politics has not reached its final form, not by a longshot. It's already been mentioned that the orderly 40s will be something of a Potemkin village, given that contentious social issues will be put on a back burner, and there's likely to be a shakeup somewhere up ahead.
There's something else, though: the United States is rich, rich, filthy rich. That's at least as true in TTL as in OTL, given that the US didn't throw billions of dollars down a hole in the Great War and has been milking that head start ever since. Imperial trading networks have helped Europe recover, and by this time in TTL, Germany might be wealthier per capita than the United States, but it's a good bet no one else is. Good wages and high living standards will still draw immigrants even to a United States that has a lesser global presence, although the flow won't be as large as it would be if the US were more of a world power.
Your point about TTL's United States being more hospitable to non-white immigrants is also well taken, although some parts of the country are less hospitable than others.
Even without anti-colonialism, Jim Crow was a hypocritical embarrassment in a nation supposedly founded on freedom and equality, and many did recognize it as such at the time. In TTL, the African-American community has been able to maintain power centers like South Carolina, the white supremacist view of history isn't as hegemonic, and the biracial populists succeeded in breaking through as one of the major parties. But as you say, there was still a high price in blood to be paid.
As you say, probably not: the United States and the Ottoman Empire don't really have any reasons to fight, and at this point the US is still an oil exporter.
You're correct that the Balkan and Arab Christian immigrants will fill many of the roles that Jews did in OTL - Lebanese and Palestinian immigrants have certainly done so in OTL Latin America. There will also be Jews, albeit a lesser number of them, in those roles. And yes, they'll probably have an easier time of joining the general population, although there will be neighborhoods and rural areas with a distinctly Serbian or Syrian character.
As with radio, the development of motor vehicles and Jonathan's decision that what are called OTL "automobiles" or "cars" will here be called "fiacres" is one of those early developments of the Great War that we were told about but haven't actually seen many examples of. Come to think of it, let me look at how the Sesquicentennial Parade with its catalytic terror attack is described...nope, no mention of "fiacres" there either!
Well, part of the reason is that, in TTL, trucks are as iconic as cars - "motor wagons" have been mentioned quite a few times, and many of them were present during the sesquicentennial parade. But also, as you say yourself, the fact that I don't mention something doesn't mean it isn't happening. I've got a whole world to deal with here, and if I'm going to stay anywhere near focused on the core parts of the story, many things will have to happen offstage.
Passenger cars have indeed been spreading - in the United States, they're one of the non-electric aspects of the Electric Age, and there are also plenty of them in Europe and among the Asian and African middle class. The fiacre industry will be a big part of the Niger Valley states' story during the middle part of the century. We'll see more of them, never fear.
But I have to say, that bus sure looks futuristic for a 1920s American make--even if we grant that the general state of the art is more like OTL 1930s.
I guess French Futurism had a deep impact on American design sensibilities, eh?
Buses are called buses, yes - the term dates from before the POD. And futurist design sensibilities are indeed a suitable explanation for me sneaking in a 1961 photo and hoping no one would call me on it.
The African-American population is a little larger than OTL in absolute numbers: immigration is part of the reason, as well as more African-Americans staying on the land and having larger families, and (as you say) better social outcomes causing lower mortality for much of the population. The reason you missed is that there's been less European immigration: instead of continuing full-steam until the early 1920s, the flow of immigrants from Europe was interrupted during 1893-97 and made only a partial recovery after that. The absence of the immigration quotas of the OTL 1920s is making up for that somewhat by allowing immigration from southern and eastern Europe to continue, but the net effect is to make African-Americans a relatively larger proportion of the United States' population.
The differences are otherwise explained by TTL's migration patterns: a somewhat muted Great Migration that was more directed toward the Midwest, Jim Crow policies tying down more people in the Deep South, and of course, the pull factors in Mississippi and South Carolina.
Come to think of it, I should probably have made the Mississippi percentage higher - but then again, Mississippi is still dirt-poor, so even without Jim Crow, a lot of black sharecroppers will leave, while a relatively smaller proportion of whites will do so because more of them own land. So yeah, Mississippi has a narrow black majority, but more of them are middle-class or at least yeoman farmers.
There are a number of reasons for Florida's demographics. As Shevek23 mentions, Jim Crow there was pretty vicious, but that pulls both ways: on the one hand, more African-Americans will want to leave, but on the other hand, there will be more to stop them from doing so. Jim Crow regimes didn't want black people to leave the state: they wanted them to stay and be available for semi-slave labor, so devices like debt, and sometimes sheer terror, were used to keep them where they were. Many of the people who took part in the Great Migration, both OTL and TTL, had to leave in the dead of night.
The main reason why Florida is slightly less black in TTL is more prosaic: earlier resort development along the coast, leading to white migration into the state.
It probably wasn't the worst: Georgia and Alabama were at least as vicious, in OTL and TTL. However, African-Americans are a smaller minority there, so it's easier for the entrenched elites to retain control by other methods once Jim Crow is dismantled. Also, if I recall correctly, Florida didn't have as much of a populist tradition as the states to the north, so in TTL there isn't a biracial Farmer-Labor organization there to mitigate the Democrats' racial politics.
You'll notice Virginia's also a holdout, although populist roots are stronger there, so it might not hold out as long or as hard.
Thanks! Southern Africa will be next.
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Hm, now that was a very interesting update. I'll be honest, I was quite surprised by some of the turns. In particular, I was also expecting a more drawn-out fight in the civil rights movement over its identity, although the federal troops and government stepping in is by no means far-fetched.
Actually, one thing that might be worth bringing up is there will likely be more believers in the importance of government oversight on a social level than there are today, with a very recent and large example like the federal troops having to step in and essentially rule the South after local rule devolved into an unending terror war. Not to say there won't be backlashes against it in the future or that small government politics is dead, but it certainly puts a different spin on things.
We've discussed the breakdown into a de-facto 2.5 party system at the federal level earlier in the thread, so that was not particularly surprising. I'm guessing that things aren't so clear on a state level though, right? At least, I'm basing this off OTL politics, but for example, in Wisconsin I would not be surprised if the Farmer-Labor/Progressive partnership is reversed with the Progressives as the major big tent left-wing party, based on their longer establishment and ties to the state's specific culture, and Farmer-Labor being a junior partner in the mold of city-level Socialists for urban voters.
One other thing we described was that there would be some different issues that each party within the coalitions might be drawn to. I can see the Progressives being a party with a lot of advocates for condoms and birth control to fight the Congo Fever, educational standards that might include broader multi-cultural and multi-lingual education, etc. while the Democrats benefit from the Fourth Great Awakening in how they redefine themselves as a party for Southern Traditional Values(tm) which could eventually come to include environmental stewardship and socially conservative Black christians and muslims who are getting uncomfortable with the rising culture in the Electric Age. This is all just guesswork, though.
Incidentally, JE, I think I may have an idea for a little POV piece for the TL based around something like this. I'll PM you when I can pin down the ideas a little more.
Among the most negative I can imagine though is if the shakeups and transitory problems of the Ottoman state that have been mentioned eventually evolve into something similar to the Northern Ireland Troubles, at least in some areas. If the Christian Arabs, as a visible and semi-distinct and politically aware group with ties to the homeland persist, there might be some similar monetary support flowing towards anti-Ottoman "freedom fighters".
Actually, one thing that might be worth bringing up is there will likely be more believers in the importance of government oversight on a social level than there are today, with a very recent and large example like the federal troops having to step in and essentially rule the South after local rule devolved into an unending terror war. Not to say there won't be backlashes against it in the future or that small government politics is dead, but it certainly puts a different spin on things.
We've discussed the breakdown into a de-facto 2.5 party system at the federal level earlier in the thread, so that was not particularly surprising. I'm guessing that things aren't so clear on a state level though, right? At least, I'm basing this off OTL politics, but for example, in Wisconsin I would not be surprised if the Farmer-Labor/Progressive partnership is reversed with the Progressives as the major big tent left-wing party, based on their longer establishment and ties to the state's specific culture, and Farmer-Labor being a junior partner in the mold of city-level Socialists for urban voters.
One other thing we described was that there would be some different issues that each party within the coalitions might be drawn to. I can see the Progressives being a party with a lot of advocates for condoms and birth control to fight the Congo Fever, educational standards that might include broader multi-cultural and multi-lingual education, etc. while the Democrats benefit from the Fourth Great Awakening in how they redefine themselves as a party for Southern Traditional Values(tm) which could eventually come to include environmental stewardship and socially conservative Black christians and muslims who are getting uncomfortable with the rising culture in the Electric Age. This is all just guesswork, though.
Incidentally, JE, I think I may have an idea for a little POV piece for the TL based around something like this. I'll PM you when I can pin down the ideas a little more.
I think you might be forgetting one thing here: a lot of these people coming to the US will be from poor regions that have less invested in Ottoman systems, but will possibly have heard and been awakened to Pan-Arabism prior to or after arriving in the US. I don't know that it would necessarily be anti-Ottoman, but they might make a strong voice for Pan-Arabist political movements there and lobby US politicians in favor of them. If connections like that are built, and relations between the Arab regions of the Empire continue to be fraught, I can see a possibly strong support evolving for them as US companies start exploring these Arabs' connections back home to establish their own operations there, which could take shape in a number of ways, some positive, some very negative.
Among the most negative I can imagine though is if the shakeups and transitory problems of the Ottoman state that have been mentioned eventually evolve into something similar to the Northern Ireland Troubles, at least in some areas. If the Christian Arabs, as a visible and semi-distinct and politically aware group with ties to the homeland persist, there might be some similar monetary support flowing towards anti-Ottoman "freedom fighters".
Nice to know I haven't become entirely predictable.
Anyway, in addition to the sense of siege mentioned earlier, TTL's civil rights movement is drawing from a different history. In OTL, the mainstream of the movement drew inspiration from Gandhi's satyagraha and shaped its tactics around the fact that past armed resistance had always failed. In TTL, there are certainly examples of satyagraha to draw from - in Java, Igboland and India itself - but there's also the Great Rising, which succeeded in taking long-term control of South Carolina, and the Indian war of independence. For that matter, if one looks at it the right (or wrong) way, the conflict on Java could be interpreted as showing that nonviolence works best with the threat of violence in the background. So in TTL, the idea of armed resistance against terror became much more prominent.
With that said, though, there were many people who disapproved of the armed groups, particularly when they committed terrorist acts in retaliation. The nonviolent protesters were important to swaying public opinion in the early 1920s, and as mentioned, the momentum swung heavily in their favor after the Federal intervention. The successes of the 30s and onward are owed to the nonviolent movement.
Very likely, although it's also possible that abuses of power later on could move opinion back in the other direction. This won't necessarily happen, but it's possible.
Absolutely. There are indeed states where the Progressives are the senior partner, and in parts of the South and New England, local Democratic and Republican candidates still run against each other. There are also states with genuine three- or even four-party systems where coalition politics is still the rule.
Things might get interesting, as well, when Alaska, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands get statehood (the latter two might do so together).
It's pretty good guesswork. The South Carolina Democrats have gone a long way down that path already - there are still white-majority counties in upstate SC where the Democratic Party is competitive, but the whites who stayed there have long since become used to working with black politicians, and the Democratic organization has picked up many conservative black votes. In the rest of the South, black conservatives vote Republican, but they could easily shift as the local Democratic committees come to terms with civil rights and they see the advantages of a unified conservative party.
One thing to remember about the Fourth Great Awakening, though: it's energizing the religious left as well as the religious right. The Christian left will probably play second fiddle to the secular left, but it will be a significant force in American politics going forward - and some Southerners will interpret traditional Southern values its way.
Please do - I'd love to see it.
This wouldn't apply to the Serbs and Bulgarians, obviously, but I could certainly see it happening with many of the Arab Christian immigrants - Christians are prominent in TTL's pan-Arabism (as in OTL's) and the diaspora could give financial and lobbying support to their favored parties back in the homeland. This would likely have both positive and negative effects, as is usually the case when diasporas become involved in the old country's politics.
Well, Harry Turtledove's written that story a few times, so maybe I can take a stab at it.
I'm arguing an appeal in Rochester on Wednesday, and I expect to have a lot of down time at the airport.Hmmm. I can imagine the Army still being segregated at this point, not so much from racism as from institutional inertia. Black regiments with black officers, white regiments with white officers and an integrated staff - some of the black officers might even prefer it that way, figuring that integrated units would cause discipline problems and the Colored Regiments provide a guaranteed path of advancement. On the other hand, a segregated army enforcing civil rights would look pretty hypocritical, and maybe TTL's Eighteenth Amendment is what finally convinces the army to integrate at all levels of operation.
I think I know who the viewpoint character in that narrative might be - he's the grandson, or maybe the great-grandson, of someone we've seen before, and he's involved in both the Southern deployment and the internal politics of integrating the military.
They've also lost some immigrant flow - after the Great War, the number of Europeans available to emigrate anywhere was much reduced. There's some flow from Portugal and Spain, which stayed out of the war (although Iberians are more likely to go to South America), and countries with ties to an established pool of immigrants are still getting them, but at a slower pace than before. The pace might pick up again now that a generation has passed since the war - but on the other hand, western Europe and Scandinavia are prosperous enough by now that few people want to leave, and eastern Europeans have closer opportunities.
Again, I believe that Italy might be the major exception to this.
It's losses in TTL's Great War are very likely to be FAR worse that the already rather nasty butcher's bill we got from WWI... but they are also more than a generation away, and probably concentrated in the North. I don't think that prosperity (that would be somewhat more noticeable than IOTL) would have brought to demographic transition yet.
So, you have still a lot of dispossessed Southern Italian peasants looking for an opportunity elsewhere - and the Southern Cone nations are likely to be at least as welcoming as IOTL, probably more.
As for the US... many Italians will go there as well, sure, but not nearly as many as IOTL.
Two unknowns may change this picture, though:
1) Tunisia. Italy can try to direct as many of the emigrants as possible there (it is indeed quite a reasonable thing to do in the perspective of an Italian government of the time) but how much is "possible" is questionable. Tunisia is a protectorate, not a colony, an the locals will have a say on the matter. Some Italians will be welcome, but a massive flood emphatically won't, and the Italian authorities will probably can take a couple of lessons from Angola and the Rif to understand where to stop. If not, their funeral.
2) Land reform. TTL's Italy is considerably more leftist than IOTL and a serious land reform would turn a lot of potential emigrants into small landholders (though a lot of it would be marginal land, barely sustainable). I don't know if this would be attempted outside the Northeast (in the Northeast, I assume that most big farms would be expropriated and given to either the former tenants or the local villages as communes in the aftermath of the war, as the big landowners likely supported Austrian occupation in many places) because it may seem a bit too radical even for a left-liberal regime.
Of course, by 1930, Socialist are likely to be a solid force in this Italy...
EDIT: I checked previous updates, and indeed land reform occurred in the Northeast as I supposed, and seems to have happened to some extent in the rest of the country.
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Sulemain
Banned
If I'm thinking of the same character you are JE, an update from one of his descendants would be fascinating .
I expect the US Army to "look" like it did in OTL after the Great War; British style uniforms and helmets, Springfield Rifles and BARs, something like this:
http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/T2_Medium_Tank as the mane Rider.
.I expect the US Army to "look" like it did in OTL after the Great War; British style uniforms and helmets, Springfield Rifles and BARs, something like this:
http://wiki.worldoftanks.com/T2_Medium_Tank as the mane Rider.
That makes complete sense. Maybe it just didn't feel as tense since it was a summery of events rather than explored in minute detail. But I know you want to move this TL forward, and the African American experience is major component of the story, but far from the only or even a central one. That said, I do hope you might have the time to throw some literary updates about the period or biographies on the major figures involved, but if not it's all good.
That's what I thought, but I wasn't sure. Made me wonder if I missed something that happen in the Ottoman Empire.
Thanks for the info though.Which again makes complete sense given the coalition building in the past. It's much more interesting too, and also brings a more diverse opinion on politics than mindlessly slicing things into left and right, especially OTL's USian sense of it. I'm curious where this is going to go, especially since the US, culturally speaking, doesn't carry many notions of 'saving the free world'. Since the Treaty of Washington ended the Great War in TTL's US, and peace advocates played a strong role, could TTL's US see itself as still a policeman of the world, but more in a negotiator light?
I'm not even sure that the butcher's bill would be worse - no Cadorna, after all, and no multiple exercises in futility on the Isonzo. The losses were no doubt high, especially when the Italian army was in full retreat, but TTL's general staff might not have been as keen on throwing men away.
Anyway, I expect you're right about the demographic pressure in southern Italy, and also that most of the emigration will go to the Southern Cone nations, which fought alongside Italy in the war and which are still underpopulated. There are already established Italian communities in the United States by this time, so some of the emigrants will go there too.
Pretty much - I expect that the Italians in Tunisia will live in merchant enclaves in the port cities, with only limited amounts of land available to farmers. On the other hand, the Italian part of Eritrea is fairly wide open, and some of the Eritreans might even want Italians there, given how well the Russo-Eritrean symbiosis in the other half of Eritrea has worked out. On the third hand, it will be harder to get Italians to go to Eritrea than Tunisia, and if they try widespread agricultural settlement, they're likely to wear out their welcome quickly.
This probably depends on how willing the government is to confront the big southern landowners, and how bolshy the southern peasants are by this time. I suspect that land reform wouldn't entirely cut off the emigrant stream, though - as you say, a lot of the land would be marginal, and land speculators might pick up much of it at bargain prices. Urbanization is what will keep people from leaving the south, and that might be a while off yet.
If I'm thinking of the same character you are JE, an update from one of his descendants would be fascinating
Now that I think about it, there might be descendants of two people we've seen before.
I wonder if they'd go for more of a German look, given that the German army was the top performer in the Great War - but on the other hand, they'd be looking more toward mobile warfare out west than trench warfare, and that might push them toward a British model.
That makes complete sense. Maybe it just didn't feel as tense since it was a summery of events rather than explored in minute detail. But I know you want to move this TL forward, and the African American experience is major component of the story, but far from the only or even a central one. That said, I do hope you might have the time to throw some literary updates about the period or biographies on the major figures involved, but if not it's all good.
I'll tell you what - the narrative update will have multiple scenes. Tentative working title: "A Southern Symphony, 1930."
That's certainly what Jane Addams wanted to do - make the United States a leading player in regional and global diplomacy, and in the creation of mutual-aid networks between nations. She was considered a bit of a utopian even in her own party, but she laid a foundation that others will try to build on later.
Started reading this from the beginning a few months ago, just finished it, and... wow. Certainly one of the best TLs I've read here, up there with Decades of Darkness. I especially like how it remembers the human side of history and gives everyone shades of grey and their own motivations, be they idealism, power, or otherwise.
Now, for comments on the TL itself. When you said that TTL's 1940s in the US would be a time of, on the surface, relative political harmony, the first thing that came to mind was OTL's '50s, or at least the popular image of it. A more progressive version of the '50s, but still. Given that America hasn't experienced anything analogous to OTL's Great Depression, would I be wrong in imagining that pop culture and consumer culture in TTL's '40s are roughly similar to what they were in the '50s IOTL, on top of the political similarities that I took from what you said? I could see it being like that in Europe, too, with the added benefit of TTL's last great war being decades in the past and Europe having had nearly half a century to recover. And throw on the fact that, unlike IOTL, non-whites are largely sharing in the global prosperity at this point in time, not only in Europe and the US but also in the dominions. France already has de jure racial equality (if not de facto), the unification of the Niger Valley states looks like it will be happening sooner rather than later (as does the exploitation of oil), and the '30s through '50s are said to be a time of continued social progress for African Americans. It would be interesting to see what an African or Asian culture's alt-'50s would look like.
Another thing: IOTL, the term "Boston marriage" had a roughly similar meaning to TTL's "Turkish marriage", only it described relationships between two women, and didn't always have romantic connotations. Granted, the term was coined after the POD (in the 1880s), but the idea of it goes back well before, and given (what I'm guessing is) the roots of the phrase "Turkish marriage" in the male bathhouse scene, I'm guessing some form of alternate term for a same-sex female relationship would come up. I just thought it would be a good OTL term to borrow. It would also be a point to touch on once the subject of feminism comes back up, especially with TTL's gay rights movement getting a few decades' head start.
Now, for comments on the TL itself. When you said that TTL's 1940s in the US would be a time of, on the surface, relative political harmony, the first thing that came to mind was OTL's '50s, or at least the popular image of it. A more progressive version of the '50s, but still. Given that America hasn't experienced anything analogous to OTL's Great Depression, would I be wrong in imagining that pop culture and consumer culture in TTL's '40s are roughly similar to what they were in the '50s IOTL, on top of the political similarities that I took from what you said? I could see it being like that in Europe, too, with the added benefit of TTL's last great war being decades in the past and Europe having had nearly half a century to recover. And throw on the fact that, unlike IOTL, non-whites are largely sharing in the global prosperity at this point in time, not only in Europe and the US but also in the dominions. France already has de jure racial equality (if not de facto), the unification of the Niger Valley states looks like it will be happening sooner rather than later (as does the exploitation of oil), and the '30s through '50s are said to be a time of continued social progress for African Americans. It would be interesting to see what an African or Asian culture's alt-'50s would look like.
Another thing: IOTL, the term "Boston marriage" had a roughly similar meaning to TTL's "Turkish marriage", only it described relationships between two women, and didn't always have romantic connotations. Granted, the term was coined after the POD (in the 1880s), but the idea of it goes back well before, and given (what I'm guessing is) the roots of the phrase "Turkish marriage" in the male bathhouse scene, I'm guessing some form of alternate term for a same-sex female relationship would come up. I just thought it would be a good OTL term to borrow. It would also be a point to touch on once the subject of feminism comes back up, especially with TTL's gay rights movement getting a few decades' head start.
Cadorna was only a little worse than his foreign counterparts such as Nivelle, Falkenhayn or Haig, not to mention Sukhomlinov.
Broadly speaking, in IOTL's WWI, there was no shortage of generals with little qualms of generals willing to sacrifice their men by the tens of thousands.
Cadorna's bad rap is very well deserved, but it should be remembered that he was not an exceptional case but part of a generally dark spectrum.
The more mobile nature of the front ITTL's may mean a little less KIA than in trench warfare (the conditions of alpine trench warfare were pretty horrible even by WWI standards) but on the other hand, ITTL Italy is fighting on two Alpine fronts.
The ensuing warfare in the Padan Plain ad the Appennines is likely to be even more vicious and it will catch a LOT of civilians in between.
I am afraid that overall, Italy has suffered more ITTL.
Note that, however, Italy is better off (as in, probably being in 1893 where she was IOTL in 1915, very roughly speaking) at the start and has more time to recover.
The Italian general staff (or what passed for it) may be marginally more competent than its IOTL counterparts, but willingness to waste men was a feature in the wars in East Africa IOTL in the 1890's.
You put Baratieri in charge of part of the front in 1898, and he proved to be a catastrophic commander IOTL.
I think that the total losses suffered by Italy can be higher at least in relative terms.
According to the maps seen so far, Italian Eritrea comprises a coast of some commercial use, and some of the most forbidding deserts on the planet. The city-port of Assab may host a relatively vibrant mixed culture (although probably an extremely provincial one) with Italian, Arabian and East African merchants, but the rest has basically no agricultural land to speak of. IIRC, Assab imported grains and other foodstuffs from Yemen.
Italian Eritrea is probably only very sparsely populated by some herder tribes, and while Italian influence on them may be culturally interesting, I can hardly see any Italian farmer willing or able to settle in the area.
I suppose that it would be sort of possible to scrape some barely arable plot from the area, especially using some very hardy African crops (or domesticating some Australian flora) but that would probably require some government-supported long-term development program. Nothing to attract your average landless peasant.
IOTL, in the nineteenth century, some not insignificant parts of Tunisia hosted very noticeable groups of Italian (esp. Sicilian) farmers. It was not only about trading urbanites.
The only community whose location I am sure about was around Kelibia, where they grew grapes (Kelibia wine is still one the best in North Africa) but there were many others.
So actually I expect the reverse of what you suggest: Italians will get some farmland in Tunisia (though probably not a very large amount; after some point, how much will become political) and will gather in the port "cities" in Eritrea.
As you say, land reform, while important will not entirely stop emigration. It will reduce it a lot, though.
I am not sure of what would happen about it, though. The very existence of a working model in the Northeast would make pressure for it be much stronger, but there is a lot of variables.
For some reason, I always enjoy this TL's take on American electoral politics. No idea why, I just do. The writing is, as ever, sublime, and it's good to see a Civil Rights movement very different from ours, but where the nonviolent streak still wins out - on which note, is there any figure in TTL's Civil Rights to compare in stature to MLK and his peers?
The wordsmith in me quite likes the notion of 'Greek marriages', both as a complementary term to 'Turkish marriages' and a nod to Sappho's origins (although the modern definitions of 'Sapphic' and 'lesbian' only came about at around the same time as the term 'Boston marriage' did), although I can't see it happening in-universe (other than as a lazy comment on traditional Greco-Ottoman relations with a dollop of national stereotyping thrown in)...
The wordsmith in me quite likes the notion of 'Greek marriages', both as a complementary term to 'Turkish marriages' and a nod to Sappho's origins (although the modern definitions of 'Sapphic' and 'lesbian' only came about at around the same time as the term 'Boston marriage' did), although I can't see it happening in-universe (other than as a lazy comment on traditional Greco-Ottoman relations with a dollop of national stereotyping thrown in)...
I honestly can't remember him
Ahh, Malatesta was it? The anarchist guy who kinda made northeastern Italy to be a little screwy? Yeah, my brain's blacked out on this too. Guess Italian atheists/anarchists are lower on the memory scale than Melisandre's theology.