Photos from Featherston's Confederacy/ TL-191
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Edward Mallory "Ned" Almond, pictured here in 1943. A graduate of VMI Class of 1915 and a veteran of the Roanoke Front, Almond was deeply affected by the Confederacy's defeat, not least because of the loss of his hometown to the postwar territorial concessions. Shuffled off to the Virginia Militia, Almond openly aligned himself with Featherston's supporters and joined the ranks of the Freedom Party Guards, where his organizational abilities quickly impressed his compatriots and he was rapidly promoted through the ranks to Brigade Leader. When the Second Great War broke out, he was tasked with overseeing Freedom Party Guard combat and anti-partisan operations with the Army of Northern Virginia. Despite his aggressiveness, he would earn the scorn of his CS Army subordinates and peers, many of whom considered him an incompetent sycophant and an irresponsible commander more concerned with the Black population than the Yankees. When the U.S. launched a new offensive in 1944, Almond - having grown complacent by MacArthur's previous failed attempts - was unable to mount successful defenses or counterattacks at the Wilderness, a failure which he would blame squarely on the ANV's perceived incompetence and his own men's lack of courage. A furious Featherston would sack him shortly after, holding him directly responsible for the collapse of the North Anna River Line. Almond would eventually be forced to surrender near Emporia with elements of the local National Assault Force. Convicted of war crimes, his testimony against fellow FPG members would lighten his sentence to life imprisonment. He died in 1979, aged 86.
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Quick question: Who do you guys think would be President of The United States today? And do you also think that Texas would still be independent today? Personally I think Texas would still most likely still be independent, but if Texas isn't and was reannexed by the US, I think Texas would perhaps be a autonomous region.
I don’t think Texas would be allowed autonomy forever. The region was already de facto occupied by the US, and they honestly made it clear the only reason they recognized it at all was because it further split the CS in the war.
I doubt that. If USA just annexed Canada and CSA I don't see any reason why they wouldn't do that with Texas eventually. USA seems really expansionist and wanting take as much of Anglo nations in North America as possible.
A Canadian boy hands a newspaper to a Canadian soldier fighting in southern Ontario, 1915.
So I know it’s a rough and at times obvious analog but the USA is supposed to be the Soviet Union in WW2 in settling accounts
does this mean it eventually collapses in y’all’s mind?
does this mean it eventually collapses in y’all’s mind?
No, I don’t think so. It was the Soviet analogue in terms of the Freedomite Confederacy. It’s really a nation modeled on German roots, like an Imperial Germany with militant democracy.
The US doesn't have the Soviet Union horrid economic basis. They may have a socialist party but given that there exists an opposition party it's safe to say they also follow free-market and capitalism
No, I don’t think so. The structural issues that led to the collapse of the USSR in our world, such as a grossly inefficient planned economy and an unsustainable arms race with a rival superpower, are not in the cards for the USA, from what we’re shown, by the time the series ends.
In my mind, yes.
I disagree. I think that its absolutely possible that the US will get bogged down in foreign conflict and Cold War, and ultimately I don't think re-integration of the South and Canada is really possible after 80 years of independence. The Canadian and Confederate national identities are arguably stronger than those of the Soviet republics at this point.
Additionally, and in my view more importantly, I feel the US collapsing is more thematically appropriate and consistent with the series. Southern Victory is fundamentally a critique of American Exceptionalism, showing a world where war and violence is just as prevalent on the North American continent as in Europe, and bringing the collapse of the USSR to America is a fitting conclusion to that. I'm quite willing to bet that if Turtledove had continued the series into the Cold War, the US eventually would have collapsed.
I'm thinking of doing one, once I'm done with exams potentially. I've got a lot of stuff pretty much figured out already.
Where is the “Cold War” that the USA is engaged in during the postwar years? That term implies an ideological and global struggle akin to the OTL USA-USSR Cold War. While countries such as Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire are not friends of the USA in 1944, any international contest with those empires would be more like traditional great power rivalry than anything the like our world’s Cold War.
The USA and the German Empire would be rivals, but it wouldn’t be an unfriendly rivalry. By the end of the series, there are strong suggestions that the USA intends to work with the German Empire to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
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I do think that the USA can succeed in integrating former Canada and the former CSA. By 1944, the CSA has been utterly defeated and destroyed, and the Canadian and Mormon rebels have been defeated militarily. More importantly, the USA has the military power, economic power, and motivation to see through the integration of former Canada and the former CSA: it fits thematically in a series where the USA is seen struggling both to end hostile foreign encirclement in North America and to erase the shame of defeat in the War of Secession.
Again, the USA is not the OTL USSR. The USA is not a repressive dictatorship with an inefficient economy and engaged in an unsustainable global military and ideological struggle.
If a case is to be made for any of the TL-191 post-SGW empires politically fragmenting due to imperial overstretch or military conflict, the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire might be better candidates for a development analogous to the OTL fall of the USSR. For that matter, the German Empire, presumably with a large sphere of influence of its own by 1944 in both Africa and Europe, wouldn’t necessarily be free of the risk of eventual postwar fragmentation either.
However, I don’t know if anything analogous to the OTL collapse of the USSR would be in the cards in TTL simply because I can’t see anything closely analogous to the OTL USA-USSR global military and ideological contest occurring.
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I would add that while we can’t know exactly what Turtledove himself would have focused on in a postwar TL-191 series, it is interesting that the some of the last POV characters from the former CSA who we follow, in different ways, have accepted that the war is over, and are attempting to move on with their lives.
There’s Jerry Dover, who’s attempting to get back into the restaurant business and goes out of his way not to antagonize local US military authorities.
There’s Jorge Rodriguez, who actually turns in a former Freedom Party activist who wants to restart the Freedom Party, and who does so because he doesn’t want the war to continue.
There’s Clarence Potter, who is no friend of the USA, but recognizes that further military resistance will not restore the CSA. Potter actually goes out of his way to tell an angry CS veteran who reminds him of Featherston to move on with his life.
My point being, these are not POVs that necessarily suggest a likely restoration of CS independence or the ultimate failure of US rule.
The US efforts to pursue reunion with the former CSA will not be flawless or easy. And there are definitely many paths that the postwar world could go. But after everything that’s happened to the USA in the series, by 1944, the USA has won militarily in North America, albeit at a terrible price. I cannot see the USA willingly going back to a pre-SGW situation, or pre-FGW situation, for that matter, of hostile foreign encirclement in North America and the national trauma of disunion.
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While I agree that the ideological component of any hypothetical Cold War would certainly be reduced, I think a traditional Great Power rivalry could take its place, and I certainly think something of that sort could develop between the US and Germany. I agree it isn't a certainty though, but I place it in my headcanon for reasons I'll get into.
I very much disagree with the shame of the US' defeat being the central theme of the series. SV is, in my view, ultimately about how American Exceptionalism is a farce propped up by favourable circumstance, and how if the US were faced with other great powers on its doorstep, North America could be just as violent as any other continent. As for the possibility of re-integrating the South and Canada, I once agreed with the assumption that it was possible with enough resources and time, but this writeup on integration was what convinced me otherwise; https://www.deviantart.com/rvbomally/art/TL-191-Yankee-Spring-624703561
I derive a lot of my headcanon from this scenario, and I find a lot of the arguments about the Confederate national identity being too strong to reintegrate convincing.
I agree that the way the PoV's are written in In at the Death indicates resignation to US rule, but I don't think that necessarily rules out a future revival of southern independence sentiments, and when thinking about what Turtledove would have written if the series had continued, I'm more inclined to think about the ideological through-line of the series rather than its specific ending.
I don't think we're going to come to any sort of agreement on this. You wrote a whole timeline based on the idea that re-integration would be successful, and I plan to do the same based on the exact opposite idea. Seeing as I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this, I'll just say again that I think the US collapsing is what most closely follows the deconstruction of American Exceptionalism that is the main "point", for lack of a better term, of Southern Victory, rather than the US permanently attaining a hegemonic position that once again makes war foreign to the North American continent.
I think that both are possible to exist using the divergent roads theory which Turteldove uses for 191.
Depends how they manage their greatly expanded colonial empire.