Photos from Featherston's Confederacy/ TL-191
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Walter von Rathenau (1867-1950)
Walter Rathenau was notable for being the first German Jew to be elevated to the German Peerage at the rank of Furst (Prince), in 1945. By an act of the Reichstag, the title was also transmissible to his immediate family. He was instrumental in organizing German industry during the FGW, and in the 1920s, served as the Empire's Foreign Ministry, only to be removed due to Junker Anti-semitism. Rathenau then went into the political wilderness, only to be recalled in 1936, during a wave of Pro Actionist and Russian volkisch terror, as the Imperial General Staff realized how unprepared Germany was for war. Rathenau became the Minister of Armaments and Mobilization, with a wide reaching remit to not only mobilize German industry and society for the next Great War, but also to research game changing technologies. Rathenau's 1939 meeting Nobel laureate Albert Einstein jumpstarted the German superbomb program, Rathenau had the foresight to bury much of the superbomb research and production infrastructure into the German Alps, safe from even the heaviest of British and French bombers.
Churchill called Rathenau "the most dangerous Jew in all of Europe" (the American Ambassador to Berlin Morgenthau was second, in Winston's estimates). Rathenau's herculean preparations helped Germany weather the loss of much of the Rhine left bank, countless reversals on the Eastern Front and the Siege of Hamburg. But just as important was Rathenau's implacable determination. In the dark days of 1942, with Austria-Hungary and Poland on collapse, the United States foundering and Germany in retreat on all fronts, the Kaiser received a tentative British peace proposal, as a starting point for negotiations. At a joint Cabinent-General Staff meeting, Field Marshal Oskar Von Hindenburg suggested to the Kaiser and Chancellor von Richtofen to take the terms, that they had no other option.
At which, Rathenau thundered," So even as our brothers and comrades, across the ocean, and here in Europe, the Dutch, the Poles, Scandinavians, Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Finns and Balts, fight on to the last death, with no hope of succor, you would have us surrender! Never! Never! Better that we should all die standing on our feet, than lie prostate for a lifetime under the bootheels of Actionists and Tzars! For long as any German, Jew or Gentile, draws breath, then by God, we will still fight on. If you wish to talk to such evil, then go and crawl away! Germany stands, and Germany will fight on!"
Von Hindenburg the Younger slunk out of the meeting, while the Emperor, Chancellor, kings and other attendees cheered Rathenau. Even the sentries outside the doors joined in.
Minor quibble is that Nicholas II survives after being rescued (implied) and is restored to the throne after the Civil War. It is oft speculated that Alexei does die due to his hemophilia as it is actually Nicholas' brother Michael who actually succeeds him.
Olga, Queen, and then Queen Mother, of the United Kingdom (1895-1990)
Olga Nikolaevna was borne into one Empire, married into another, and lived well beyond the dissolution of both Empires. While not as notorious as her sisters the Grand Duchesses Tatiana or Anastasia, her 1929 marriage to King Edward sealed the "Imperial Pact" between London and St. Petersburg to relitigate the results of the First Great War, with even more disastrous consequences. Edward and Olga may have been initially distant due to a wide cultural and personality gap (Parliament had to grant her a dispensation to remain in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the controversial second of the Churchillian Acts, though her daughter Victoria was raised Anglican), but the King and Queen grew closer during the SGW, and the tragedies that came with it, and followed.
Loss. Perhaps that would be the most consistent word to describe Olga's life. Her father, Nikolai II, was executed during the abortive First Russian Revolution. Her brother Alexei died of hemophilic complications in 1922. Her mother Alexandra died in 1925, a bitter and disappointed woman. Her sister Tatiana, active in the Pan Slavist and Pan Indo-European movement, was assassinated in 1934 during a Nuremberg volkisch rally by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, in retaliation for Russian anti-semitic policies, and her defense of such atrocities. Another sister, Maria, died during the atom bombing of St. Petersburg, along with her children. Grand Duchess Anastasia was the most noticeable female defendant in the Kiev Trials; she was executed at the gallows for numerous crimes against humanity, including leadership roles in the persecution and genocide of Russian (and citizens of occupied territories) Jews, Muslims, Old Believers, Buddhists; drafting the infamous "Lustration Decree" which saw the wholesale murder of German and Polish officer prisoners of war who refused to respectively join the collaborationist Grand Teutonic Ducal and National Democratic Armies; and purging of Baltic, Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian clergy and intelligentsia. None of Olga's nieces or nephews survived past the Second, and successful, Russian revolution.
Olga never did set foot in her native Russia again after 1938, but she was instrumental in saving the British Crown even as its Empire disappeared. When Edward was ill and on death's door during the 1962 Crisis, it was Olga's meetings with British politicians from across the political spectrum (as well as the American and German plenipotentiaries) that prevented a British turn to Republicanism. Olga out lived her husband, and died in 1990 at Windsor Castle, with her daughter and grandchildren, as well as her nieces Elizabeth and Margaret, at her bedside.
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Ahh, thanks. I wasn't quite sure when Tsar Michael was first mentioned (I thought it was Blood and Iron).
The real Charles was actually a more distant cousin, whereas Charles W. is an alternate son, as confirmed by Turtledove himself. I don't recall using Charles M.'s face in the mix.
Wow, surprisingly recent that he confirmed that info.
Picture of USS Delaware BB-35 in mothballs in the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility (Pennsylvania) (1948). Pittsburgh-class aircraft carrier USS Al Smith is next to her to the right.
Above is the cover art of the Japanese animated series, "Girls Und Barrel". This series features the characters participated in a sport called "Barrelery", which as you guessed, is a sport involving barrels, against other schools. Each school is based on different countries involved in the Second Great War such as Tsarist Russia, the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, the United States, and, controversially, the Confederate States, use the Barrels of said countries. This series has garnered some accusations of promoting Freedomism due to a lot of focus on a character that comes from a Confederate States themed school.
Call me Ridiculous i can imagine the Confederate themed school know as Rebel Yell Girls Academy if anyone created that emblem would been obliged even Texas Themed school been know as Lone Star Girls Academy been seeing those girls wearing Texas State Rangers esque uniforms with Cowboy Hats on
Governor Eugene Talmadge (W/F-GA), 1941, Whig Party National Convention
In 1941, a few weeks after war broke out in North America, Governor Talmadge's "National Whigs", a faction of the Party loyal to the Featherston Administration that had controlled the Party's National Committee since 1938, voted to dissolve the Whig Party and fold it into the Freedom Party. The Party's few remaining Congressmen, led by Talmadge, the Party's sole remaining Governor, defected to the Administration, and the Whig Party's remaining assets and organisations were appropriated by the Freedom Party.
Though the Whig Party in exile led by Harry Byrd had long since refused to recognise Talmadge's National Committee as legitimate, the dissolution of the domestic Whigs (combined with the banning of the Radical-Liberals a few days after the beginning of Operation Blackbeard) represented the formal end of legal opposition to the Freedom Party.
In 1941, a few weeks after war broke out in North America, Governor Talmadge's "National Whigs", a faction of the Party loyal to the Featherston Administration that had controlled the Party's National Committee since 1938, voted to dissolve the Whig Party and fold it into the Freedom Party. The Party's few remaining Congressmen, led by Talmadge, the Party's sole remaining Governor, defected to the Administration, and the Whig Party's remaining assets and organisations were appropriated by the Freedom Party.
Though the Whig Party in exile led by Harry Byrd had long since refused to recognise Talmadge's National Committee as legitimate, the dissolution of the domestic Whigs (combined with the banning of the Radical-Liberals a few days after the beginning of Operation Blackbeard) represented the formal end of legal opposition to the Freedom Party.
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MaxGerke01
Banned
So despite the common impression of brave Whigs facing their demise in Freedomite camps the majority put their heads down and went along with the Freedomite regime along with a small number of Radical Liberals and an even smaller number of the small number of Confederate white Socialists ?
No, most of the party leadership got sent to the camps as politicals, but a few under Talmadge were allowed to take over the party and run it as a puppet of the Freedom Party until the war. This obviously didn't go well with most loyal Whigs, but the only people who could disapprove were the exiles, who by their nature couldn't actually stop what was happening.
The Rad-Libs were similar, but their arrangement (read; Featherston's control) was far more tenuous, so instead of being absorbed they were banned. The Socialists were banned in 1936, after the Richmond Olympics, and were never given any quarter at all.
Confederate Militia Men in the Southwest, still wearing out dated Grey Uniforms
A Virginia Central Railroad manifest freight rolls along the Virginia Centrals James River line. Build on the tow path of the old James River and Kanawha Canal the VC's James River line offered the VC a water level route into the Shenandoah Valley and down into the Southwest Virginia Coal Fields where it would compete with the Atlantic Mississippi and Ohio RR for dominance in the transport of Coal. Picture taken sometime in the Mid 1930's
The Atlantic Mississippi and Ohio Railroad was perhaps the premier east west link for the Confederacy though out its existence. Founded in 1869 by William Mahone and his wife. It gain a fortune from the transportation of Coal from Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee. Its tracks stretched west from Norfolk Va to Memphis on the Mississippi and Louisville on the Ohio. Here is one of the AM&O's massive 4-8-4 N class locomotives pulling its flagship train the Virginia Cardinal trains 12 and 14 from Norfolk to Memphis. With stops in Lynchburg, Salem, Bristol, Knoxville, and Nashville along the way. Her sister train that ran to Louisville was called the Thoroughbred trains 15 and 16. In both cases one train would run west east while the other east west.
A potential difference between the real world and that of the books might be the continued use of 1,524 mm gauge in the South. It was all converted to standard gauge in 1886 in our world, but with the CSA existing as a separate nation they might have decided not to do it, to deny the USA from effectively using their own rail network against themselves. Would also be a fun little nod to the problems the Germans faced with the Russian 1,520 mm railroads, since they used the standard gauge themselves.
Would also be funny if there was some sort of overlap between locomotives of the Confederacy and those of Russia, such as both ordering same models from manufacturers overseas, but I don't know if that's plausible.
I plan on going into this but what would become tye American Locomotive Company started as the Tredegar Locomotive Works in Richmond VA. Pre Civil War so not all csa Locomotives are imported in 191. Plus the AM&O (which became the Norfolk and Western in 1873 OTL ) will have its own shops in Lynchburg VA.