You're reading my mind! We'll take a look at the Emerald Isle in chapter 32... we've got one more India installment first...
Place In the Sun: What If Italy Joined the Central Powers? (1.0)
- Thread starter Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth
- Start date
Rivercat893
Banned
If India and Ireland do successfully secede from the British Empire, it will cause instability to rise. The Leninists and Martovists of Russia are in a quagmire right now but that doesn't mean they can't overthrow the Tsar. As for the United States, since a Republican is in office coupled with butterflies removing the Great Depression this might cause blacks to vote for the GOP as opposed to the Democrats.
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India won't be breaking away just yet.. but that day will come. Ireland... I'm not sure, we'll find out together! The Bolsheviks will get their moment- we've got a nice long Russian Civil War to look forward to!
Rivercat893
Banned
We're good friends you know. Also, African-American voters could go for the GOP instead of the Democrats since Charles Evans Hughes defeated Woodrow Wilson and the Great Depression might be butterflied away because of a Central Powers victory.
Right on both counts about US politics. The Democrats will remain the party of the South for the foreseeable future; the war butterflies out the economic structures for both the Roaring 20s and Great Depression
Rivercat893
Banned
Since Southern conservatives are voting Democrat, Black liberals will go Republican. And as for what TTL's 1920s might look like? My guess is that we would still see many innovations from OTL, and some trends like the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, immigration restriction, and the Red Scare. Pop culture is definitely going to be very different too for starters since the United States never participated in World War I because Italy stayed with the Central Powers, Walt Disney might not become a world-famous animator and the background of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby will be completely different.
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I dunno about that. A balkanized India in the 20th Century is pretty asb in my opinion. My grandpa was a kid during the struggle for independence and he vividly remembers the rallies and the political demonstrations for Independence. My family's from Southern India (Kerala) and while its quite culturally distinct from other parts, it too fully embraced Indian nationalism. While Hindi is the national language only 0.6% of the population actually speaks it natively in Kerala with Malayalam being preferred. Still the people there have a sense of a pan-Indian identity as opposed to a regional one.Yup. United India isn't an inevitability, nor is Balkanised India... but I think the different circumstances on the continent naturally lead to more divisions. We'll have to see though- my plans could well change.
Also, on the subject of China: any ideas as to what may happen?
Honestly I'm quite fascinated by the events in this tl. Great job @Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth!
I actually thing the First Red Scare would still happen- Russia is going to see a communist revolution soon and France is already knee-deep in one.
Prohibition would probably get butterflied (yay!) but nativism and the KKK... probably not.
I see. Well, I'll have to work all that into the timeline... always things to consider! Thanks for telling us a bit about your grandfather- sounds like he had an interesting life!
Thank you very much for the kind words; your support is much appreciated.
Especially since at this point, well, the concessions they'd have to make might not work.
Rivercat893
Banned
And let's not get into the Irish. Ireland is going to be free much like India and there will be a lot of ethnic tension that surpasses the Troubles. Anglo-Irish Presbyterians are going to still carve up all of Ulster as a constituent of the United Kingdom with their own military force to counter the Irish Republicans.
The communist revolution in France is obviously going to fail since we voted in favor of Action Francaise turning the country into an Italy-style dictatorship with a puppet king and a powerful chancellor or Chef in charge. Russia might go communist, retain the Tsar (even if he is a figurehead), or become a Kerensky-style democratic republic. Britain is going to face a lot of instability and Hungary might not last long.
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I would be cautious about this. Major boom and bust cycles were part and parcel of American industrial capitalism for decades before Black Thursday, and the worsening state of the Great Depression depended on factors that, though debated, aren't likely to change due to being driven by existing government values.
Economic circumstances - the loss of the war loans, the chaos in France, and the economic primacy of Germany in Europe - should help prevent the 20s bubble from getting as big as it did. The international debt structure contributed heavily to the bubble and the Depression, and that's now out of the picture. Lack of war participation means the economy is starting from a lower base when it comes to agricultural demand and industrial supply. But the American banking system is still horribly under-regulated and particularly in the rural areas badly over-leveraged with risky loans, something that had been ongoing since the 1880s. The Federal banking system is still likely to end up run by economists obsessed with price stability over banking stability. The Dust Bowl conditions were dependent too on factors that precede the POD. And if anything there's more incentive for some bubbles like Florida real estate, with French Riviera cut off pretty much until the end of the ongoing civil unrest.
What I'm saying is that the Roaring 20s won't be roaring quite as hard. But I'd still expect a major recession/outright depression at some point and with the state the American banking industry is in that's going to send the entire economy into a tailspin as soon as it hits, one that could very well end up as bad as the Great Depression was IOTL. The one bright spot is that it won't have nearly as many international impacts due to Europe generally being far more decoupled from the American economy.
And then you start getting into the more heterodox explanations...
Rivercat893
Banned
Jews are another topic to discuss regarding their status in the world of Place in the Sun. Zionism (aka Jewish nationalism) was already a well-established phenomenon since the 1880s when pogroms in the Russian Empire caused millions of Jews to emigrate to the United States and become an influential ethnic group there. The Rothschilds and Christian backers such as William Blackstone were pushing for a Jewish state in what was then Palestine which saw some Jewish emigration. Since the Central Powers were the victors of World War I, the Balfour Declaration definitely doesn't exist and the Ottomans still control all of OTL's Israel. But Zionist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish Committee will still push for a Jewish homeland in the Middle East whether the Ottoman Empire/Turkey likes it or not.
I mean that his "nonviolent freedom fighter" image won't exist
Well I hope Kerala will be safe, but considering how its part of the southwestern most part of the peninsula, it would probably the site of a potential British invasion.
Though @Kaiser Wilhelm the Tenth , what do you plan for the various Indian royal families? They still had some power after all. While in modern India they lost their titles, they still have their wealth and have a lot of influence behind the scenes as part of the local elites.
Also: How many of those British Garrison troops in India are Irish?
Irish Troops in India defecting to the locals might sound rather outlandish. However what if we're not talking about that happening right after an uprising in Ireland, but 99,99% of them staying loyal once news of the uprising reaches India at first. Yet the English treating them more and more as unreliable, untrustworthy, gotta keep and eye on them with more and more bullying, loyalty checks, somehow them always being last for being issued weapons and ammo? The Viceroy seems to be paranoid enough to back them into a corner.
Rivercat893
Banned
Even then, India is going to be free from the British in the next decade or two. Same thing with Ireland. The ethnic tensions and manpower are just too much for the empire to handle.