The US would most likely use National Guard units from California, Arizona, and Nevada to help pacify Sonora and Chihuahua, to allow the US Army to occupy and garrison the rest of the former Confederacy.
Question regarding TL-191 (American occupation of the CSA)
- Thread starter Pragmatic Progressive
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The US would most likely use National Guard units from California, Arizona, and Nevada to help pacify Sonora and Chihuahua, to allow the US Army to occupy and garrison the rest of the former Confederacy.
I think that Cuba would be given independence during the mid-1950s, and that Fidel Castro would be president, but he would also be some sort of a US puppet.
But why would people living in the US care about what happens to former Confederate citizens living Sonora and Chihuahua, if US troops are simultaneously battling Freedom Party resistance in other parts of the old Confederacy? Also, the US public has recently become aware of the Confederate death camps used to commit genocide against blacks, so are people in the US going to care a whole lot of Confederates living down in Sonora and Chihuahua finally get a dose of their own medicine? - Maybe, maybe not, but I doubt that anyone would want to send in US troops to defend the lives of such people.
But how stable would the Empire of Mexico be without any support from Britain and France, and how much could the US trust the Mexican Emperor after his regime had been openly hostile towards the US for so many decades? Considering that the US favors a representative form of democracy, even in the 191 universe, I'm wondering if the Dewey administration wouldn't want to topple the Mexican Empire as quickly as possible, and to replace it with a more reliable regime which more closely models itself after the US. You may be right, but I think that these things are worth taking into consideration.
Also, regarding the border between Mexico and Texas, isn't it in the US's best interest to have Texas always kept a little off balance, and what better way to do that than to have occasional border skirmishes between Mexico and Texas along their Rio Grande. Clearly the Mexican government in the 191 universe is never going to attack the US, but if the Mexicans feel that they can force Texas to make territorial concessions, then why wouldn't Mexican troops occasionally harass Texas troops along their mutual border. An unstable border doesn't harm the US one bit, and in fact it helps force Texas give up its independence and rejoin the Union.
However, what if, the President of Texas enters into secret negotiations with the government of Mexico. The two countries agree to merge, the capital of Mexico is moved from Mexico City to Austin, Texas, and former Confederates make a large part of the new Mexican government in Austin? Meanwhile, the people of the US foolishly elect another socialist president who slashes the defense budget, and around 1955 - 1960 the new Mexican / Texas nation-state attacks and occupies California, New Mexico, and the Sandwich Islands. Thus giving the new nation an empire stretching from Oregon in the north, to Honolulu in the west, and down to Central America in the south. I think that something like this happened in the alternate history novel titled, For Want of a Nail?
The imperial government in Mexico City has kept the peace in Central America, and the United States doesn't need yet another headache on top of occupying and administering three separate occupations (ex-Confederacy, Utah, and Canada). While I'm sure that some members of the US General Staff might have plans draw up for the overthrow the Mexican monarchy, it's easier to just keep it there and keep the stability in Mexico. The Emperor, Francisco Jose II, can keep an eye on the government and ensure that they don't damage the rapprochement with the United States.
That wouldn't be a bad idea, but Texas is already deep under US influence. They can't so much as sneeze without US approval. I'm sure that Texan politics will eventually devolve between pro-independence and pro-Union factions, but having an independent Texas allows the US to occupy and reconstruct the rest of the former Confederacy without having to worry about the costs of occupying Texas.
Texas wouldn't want to become part of Mexico again, the United States would never permit it, the Socialists have the specter of the Richmond Accords hanging over their head and would never allow the US to become weak by slashing the military budget, and the Democrats would take any threat to the United States seriously.
This reminds me of Puerto Rico. In OTL the US took it from Spain. No mention of it in TL191 so I guess that it is still Spanish.
And @Cire, following up on what @Joshua Ben Ari said....
It would not matter. ANY ethnic cleansing of any kind would see to shock and horror, and at worst Atomic Bombs drop on Mexcio. The Union won't be the former CSA in not caring about the Black Holocaust, and won't just let it happen. And Sonora and Chihuahua economic development would be look on greatly for rebuilding the Union.
It would not matter. ANY ethnic cleansing of any kind would see to shock and horror, and at worst Atomic Bombs drop on Mexcio. The Union won't be the former CSA in not caring about the Black Holocaust, and won't just let it happen. And Sonora and Chihuahua economic development would be look on greatly for rebuilding the Union.
That maybe so but.... If memory serves me correctly, didn't Mexican troops fight on behalf of the Confederacy towards the end of the Second Great War? If that is the case, then why would the US consider the Mexican Empire to trustworthy, and perhaps more than a few in the War Dept. would want to exact some sort of revenge upon the Mexican Empire, and perhaps the best form of revenge would be a regime change. Also, if the Empire of Mexico is allowed to continue to exist, and Imperial Japan is not yet defeated, then I think that there would be concerns among US officials that an alliance could develop between the two empires, while the US is distracted with other things. I could be wrong, but I believe that US officials would favor disposing of the Empire of Mexico for many different reasons. Also, in OTL the House of Habsburg-Lorraine during the Second Mexican Empire was not popular with the people of Mexico, and was seen as a foreign regime imposed upon them by France, perhaps the same would be somewhat true in the 191 universe as well.
True, but I think that the ultimate goal of the US is to have Texas voluntarily return itself to the Union, and not to just keep Texas under the US's thumb for an undetermented amount of time. If the Republic of Texas finds itself facing a hostile Mexico to the south, and also a sputtering Freedom Party resistance movement of its own, then perhaps the leaders of Texas will come to realize that there is no place on the Twentieth Century North American for a new small to mid-sized nation without any powerful allies. The years immediately after the Second Great War might be an era in which the small fish get eaten by the bigger fish, and if the leaders of Texas believe that they are faced with a choice of either being eaten by Mexico, or by the US, I believe that they would chose the US. - A year after the end of the war US troops strengths have been reduced to a fraction of what they were when Wright Patman took Texas out of the Confederacy, with most US troops focusing on supplying aid to black refugees, securing the Texas border between the old Confederacy (prevent the flow of Freedom Party diehards) and to search for war-criminals. Texas national security is an issue which must be dealt with by the national government in Austin, and the attitude among many US officials is that if Texas cannot provide its own national security, then perhaps they should consider abandoning their dreams of independence, and petition to rejoin the US. - Also, I wouldn't be surprised if there some under the table deals between US and Mexican officials to make sure that a certain amount of border skirmishes do occur in order to keep Austin nervous. This is the best way for the US to deal with Texas as the US continues to grapple with Freedom Party die hards in the occupied Confederacy.
Well, this was kind of an alternative idea to the Empire of Mexico being replaced by the Republic of Mexico, and Mexican nationalists becoming extremely hostile towards independent Texas. In this second scenario (which I admit is far fetched) The rulers of the Empire of Mexico and the leaders of newly independent Texas meet and realize that the world has changed, and that the only way that they can hang onto the past is by merging (not so much Texas joining) but merging the two countries as equal halves. As I said, the Mexican government would be relocated to Austin, but most of the officials in the Texas government would keep their posts in the new Mexican government, and the military and industrial resources of the two countries would be merged. Essentially the ruling elite of Texas would take over Mexico this way, and make Mexico a much stronger country. Would the 191 universe version of the US government allow something like that occur? Well, if they were dumb enough to give Jake Featherston a plebiscite regarding the ownership of several states, then why wouldn't they be dumb enough to allow a merger between Texas and Mexico? I could imagine the Socialists backing such a proposal if they thought it would guarantee peace and bring occupation troops home. - Anyway, it is just fiction and something fun to think about.
Mexican forces did fight with CS forces, but it was implied (or stated outright, it's been a while since I read the books) that the Confederacy forced Mexico to send troops. My logic for why the US would allow the Mexican monarchy to continue is simply for geopolitical reasons rather than revenge. The US has at least a dozen states damaged in the SGW, Philadelphia was nuked, there's the massive economic costs in maintaining the occupation of three separate areas (Canada, Utah, and the ex-Confederacy), as well as the costs of de-Freedomization of the former Confederacy, and reviving the economies in those at least dozen US states. There's the risk of the violence spilling over into Sonora and Chihuahua, and even the risk of the US having to send forces to stabilize Mexico. And the Hapsburgs in Mexico have been there since the 1860s and have become a, essentially, Mexican institution. We don't know how the average Mexican views the Mexican monarchy.
The political realities of the post-war settlement means that the US will have to bite the bullet and keep the Mexicans under their monarchy if only because they just can't spare the cash to fund Mexican republicans.
See, I don't think Texas will return to the US. They might be incredibly tied to the United States (economically, diplomatically, culturally, socially), but I don't believe that it will get reabsorbed. And Mexico won't try to make any moves to annex Mexico because they'll want to please the Americans, and the Americans are keeping Texas as essentially a puppet state. Plus annexing Texas into the US would be an economic burden that the US just can't handle right then in the post-war settlement.
The Socialists handed back Houston and Kentucky to the Confederacy in the Richmond Accords, and within a few years, the US was invaded in Operation Blackbeard. The Socialists has the legacy of the Richmond Accords hanging over their heads and they will not repeat those mistakes because they'll be ruined politically. Democrats will take the Texas-Mexico union as a threat to the safety of the United States, one that is like a knife jutting into the belly of the United States. It's very far-fetched and I think out of character for the post-war settlement in TL-191's United States.
Mexico is held hostage by the South in a way. Featherston blackmail the Emperor that if the Empire didn't support the Confederacy, the Confederates might support the republican rebels.
But if the Confederacy is already in a life or death struggle with the US towards the end of the Second Great War, then how could the Confederacy possibly "FORCE" the Empire of Mexico to do anything? My recollection was that the Emperor of Mexico agreed to send troops northward because Mexico was a member of the Entente alliance (as was the CS, Great Britain, France, and Russia), the Empire of Mexico was ideologically in lock step with the CS regarding their pathological hatred of the US, and also because the CS has earlier provided the Mexican Empire with modern weaponry.
From what I recall, Ohio and Eastern Pennsylvania were occupied by the CS, and that Pittsburgh was the sight of a major battle which destroyed much of its industrial infrastructure. However, the entire West Coast of the US is untouched by the war, including the industrial zones surrounding Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, and I don't recall reading anything about Detroit, Michigan being knocked out by Confederate forces? While I admit that the damage caused in Ohio (center of tire manufacturing in OTL) and Eastern Pennsylvania would have somewhat weakened the industrial capacity of the 191 United States, I don't that the temporary loss of manufacturing capacity from Ohio and Pennsylvania would have been the debilitating blow some would like to make it out as. In OTL both San Francisco and Los Angeles are a hubs of automotive manufacturing, ship building, and also airplane manufacturing as well as steel. There would also be lesser manufacturing centers sprinkled here and there about the country, for example, Studebaker once operated an auto assembly plant in New York City during the 1920s & 30s, so is there any reason to believe that a similar New York auto plant wouldn't also exist in the 191 universe?
However, the bomb detonated on the outskirts of the city, and no federal building were destroyed, and the city continued to function.
In actuality, following the end of the Second Great War, the US military would be faced with the daunting task of maintaining occupation troops in the following areas: the defeated Confederacy, Canada, Texas, Sonora and Chihuahua, Cuba, Baja California, the Sandwich Islands, Bermuda and the Bahamas. However, I believe that manpower shortages would be the biggest concern, and not financial costs, as the government can simply print more money, or make the occupied territories bear some of the financial costs of occupation.
I must respectfully disagree on this point. In the 191 universe there is a war within Mexico occurring during the 1920s known as the Mexican Civil War in which anti-Hapsburg rebels attempt to overthrow the Emperor, but there efforts are stymied by Confederate mercenaries sent to fight on the side of the Emperor. I think that this would indicate that a sizable percentage of the Mexican peasant class would be chomping at the bit for an opportunity to do away with the Emperor and his foreign backers once and for all. With France and Great Britain no longer able to support the Mexican Empire, I think that a feather could have knocked the Emperor off of his throne. Also the selling of Sonora and Chihuahua to the Confederate States to pay off a foreign debt was unpopular with the Mexican people (How Few Remain - Mexican officers crying as their flag is lowered for the last time) so I think that there is plenty of indication that the Empire of Mexico was a fragile regime which could not last long without support from outside. Again, given the fact that the US prefers to set up its puppets as republics (Quebec) what indication is there that the US would tolerate a previously hostile Empire along its southern border, when it has no obligation to do so. Simply find the right Mexican military officer, give him what he needs, and then he can overthrow the Emperor and declare the Republic of Mexico. As I said earlier, I think that the US can garner a lot of favor from the new Mexican regime be returning Sonora and Chihuahua, as these two regions are largely mountainous desserts with little potential.
But why not? An independent Texas makes sense in the 1840s, but not really so much in the modern industrialized 1940s. In OTL, back in the 1800s the independent Republic of Texas was saddled with huge foreign debt, and its currency was basically worthless, and Texas could not afford to build a proper army. So, how would that situation be any different in the 1940s? I think that the situation would be even worse for an independent Texas in the 1940s due to the fact that they've lost the western third of their territory to the US state of Houston, Great Britain and France are no longer powerful nations and can no longer provide assistance, and it is unlikely any foreign power (except for maybe Japan) would grant them diplomatic recognition. In short, an independent Texas in the 1840s at least faced the prospect of acquiring new territories and expanding its borders, but by the 1940s pretty much all of North America is already settled, and not even weakened post war Mexico is going to give any of its territory without a vicious fight. - I think that if the people of Texas are given the opportunity to regain the territories they lost to the US state of Houston, they are given the option of holding a stable currency (the US Dollar), and realize that the CS will never rise again, then yes, I think that most Texans would vote to rejoin the US by 1949 or so. The key is to turn Texas Whigs into US Democrats, and to give a few of them seats on the DNC committee.
I'm not really trying challenge anyone's beliefs regarding what may or may not happen following In at the Death, because no one can say that they are right on this topic and the other person is wrong. I'm merely to describe what I believe may have occurred in such a universe, and as much as possible I try to provide underlying reasons to support my views. However, I readily admit that my opinions do not carry anymore weight than the next person's. This is just a thought exercise which can go in a million different directions.
Well, in that case, if I were the Emperor of Mexico, then I'd immediately switch sides and start supporting the US, because anyone who attempts to blackmail you is clearly not your friend, and not someone you rely upon during a war.
Puerto Rico could a certain amount of self-government from Spain, be made a part of Spain, gain independence with the civil war in Spain itself in the 30s just because it would be a afterthought and be like Cape Verdeans. Or even become a place of exile for Alfonso when the monarchists are beaten.
Because the Confederates helped the Mexican Hapsburgs keep their throne when Maximilian was first installed and by the time of the Second Great War, Mexico was but a puppet of Richmond. Featherston got Francisco Jose II to give two divisions to fight in Operation Coalscuttle and extorted 5 more to handle Black Marxist rebels. It wasn't so much that Mexico was ideologically similar to the CSA, but rather that they had ended up as a puppet state. The Hapsburg throne in Mexico City relied on Confederate support to stay around.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Houston (western Texas), Utah (done by Mormon rebels), West Virginia, Maryland, most likely as well Missouri (for having the part of Arkansas taken after the FGW), Indiana and Illinois. At least, everything after Utah is what I imagined the CS damaged during the SGW. Not to mention the massive economic disruption that was caused by the three year Canadian uprising which shut down the US from transporting material through Ontario. The Canadian uprising was said to extend the war.
The city still was superbombed/nuked and there is still damage that has to be repaired.
Printing more money leads to inflation (which means the money is worth less), and while the US could have the occupied territories pay for their own occupation, that will engender only more resentment from the people in the ex-CSA, Canada, and Utah. More resentment means more uprisings, more uprisings means more violence, more violence means more uprisings, and it becomes a never-ending struggle. A few others and myself talked about this in the TL-191 Southern Occupation thread and how the US is going to have a massive economic disruption over maintaining three separate occupations, de-Freedomizing the ex-CSA, reviving the economies in the damaged US states as well as Occupied Canada and the ex-CSA, and rebuilding infrastructure.
The US is going to look like Europe post-1945, but without the Marshall Plan.
Would the US risk a Mexican civil war, with the possibility of the violence spilling over their border, when they already are stretched in terms of manpower; or keep the Emperor of Mexico on the throne with the understanding that he sneezes when the US says he can.
And Sonora and Chihuahua do have potential, which has been stated above.
An independent Texas, to many Texans, would be better than living under American rule. Why risk joining a government that they had fought alongside, against the United States, when they can just remain independent and live the good life off the oil money from the Gulf of Mexico?
EDIT: Corrected minor spelling mistakes
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At first:
So which is it? Did the Empire of Mexico send troops because the Confederacy forced them to, or did the Mexican Empire send troops because they felt obligated because of the Confederacy's past help?
Perhaps a better question would be would the US risk allowing a hostile regime to continue to exist in Mexico City, instead of just cauterizing the wound and doing away with the Empire of Mexico altogether before the situation becomes worse, and Mexico finds another overseas backer to help support it? Also, where is the risk of a Mexican civil war spilling over onto US soil? Would either side in the Mexican Civil War want to make war against the US?
I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on the above, and that we will each maintain our own separate views of what the 191 world would look like following In at the Death.
But then later on:
So which is it? Did the Empire of Mexico send troops because the Confederacy forced them to, or did the Mexican Empire send troops because they felt obligated because of the Confederacy's past help?
Perhaps a better question would be would the US risk allowing a hostile regime to continue to exist in Mexico City, instead of just cauterizing the wound and doing away with the Empire of Mexico altogether before the situation becomes worse, and Mexico finds another overseas backer to help support it? Also, where is the risk of a Mexican civil war spilling over onto US soil? Would either side in the Mexican Civil War want to make war against the US?
I think that we will just have to agree to disagree on the above, and that we will each maintain our own separate views of what the 191 world would look like following In at the Death.
Just one final word from me on this topic; the people of the Confederacy, including the people of Texas, considered themselves to be Americans. Also, if they've just spent the past twelve - thirteen years living under the Freedom Party regime, then why would becoming a part of the US seem so terrible to them, especially when you consider that they've just lost the war, and had to give up nearly a third of Texas. Are you saying that the people of Texas would rather live in a small unimportant country, with a third of their territory taken over by the US state of Houston, or would they rather rejoin the US, regain their lost territories in the US state of Houston, and thereby become the biggest state in the US? - It is simply a rhetorical question.
Personally? I'd say both, with more emphasis on being forced to do so by Richmond, but it was probably a mix of the two. The Confederacy's past help in keeping Maximilian on the throne was no doubt a factor in it, but by the SGW Mexico was firmly in the Confederacy's orbit. Remember, the Confederate States had covertly helped the Empire avoid a coup attempt during the Mexican Civil War by the Popular Revolutionaries (an American-backed anti-Hapsburg socialist organization) and the CS used that as a way of saying the Mexicans owed them for helping the Mexican Hapsburgs keep their throne. Though after the failure at Pittsburgh, Francisco Jose II managed to (finally) stand firm and demand no more Mexican troops be used against American forces, and they were iirc used only against Black rebels in the Deep South.
Mexico is probably a parallel of OTL's Spain and Italy, and the final book showed the US was willing to leave the Hapsburgs alone for the time being because they had been overtaxed by the costs of the post-war settlement and realities.
Mexico wasn't hostile by the end of the war. In a straight fight between the two countries, the US would no doubt win and the Mexican Emperor Francisco Jose II knew it. However, the United States has just defeated the Confederate States, ended a three year rebellion in Canada and in Utah, suffered massive economic disruption, would have to rebuild all the states damaged in the war (both American and ex-Confederate), had their own capital superbombed (even if it was just the outskirts), revive the economies in the three occupied territories, reconstruct damaged or destroyed infrastructure, handle de-Freedomization, ensure the enforcement of equality of Blacks and Whites in the South, and have the arrival of a tripolar cold war between Washington, Berlin/Vienna, and Tokyo.
The United States isn't going to care that much about Mexico City. As long as Mexico knows not to mess with the United States, and doesn't make trouble, the United States isn't going to care who sits in Mexico City. The books themselves say that Francisco Jose II is still on the throne by the end and that the US doesn't have anything in mind to overthrow him.
Texas wouldn't be the largest state, I think that would be Arizona (OTL Arizona+New Mexico). But that's a minor thing.
Houston wouldn't be added back to Texas, the TL-191 US Democrats would see to that and the US Socialists would have the specter of the Richmond Accords over their heads so they'd veto that too (and it would be used to bludgeon them at every opportunity), and Texas would have to submit to US occupation. They wouldn't be a state, they'd be under the rule of the US military. I'm saying between the choice of being a sovereign state, and being under US occupation, many Texans would no doubt choose being a state even if it meant being essentially a US puppet.
And after seeing what the US was doing in the occupied ex-CSA (remember, the US has been shown to carry out reprisal killings, 1 soldier killed meant 50 civilians killed), a lot of Texans are going to be saying "at least it's not us". The US killed 1500 random civilians in Florida in response to an attack on a US warship in Miami that killed 31 sailors. Texas is going to be thanking their lucky stars Wright Patman declared independence rather than surrender Texas. There's already a strong US military presence in the country, but at least they're not under occupation.
Spain was officially neutral during WWII, and Fascist Italy melted like a snow flake at the first sign of trouble in 1943. However, I think that Imperial Mexico would collapse just as fast as Fascist Italy if things got too hot for them.
You have absolutely nothing to base this upon, but as Hillary Clinton would say, at this point what difference does it make?
Except the US tells Mexico in the last book they have no plans to overthrow them. And given what the US is going to be going through in the reconstruction of the South, in Utah, and Canada, and the host of other issues that the US is going to be facing having just fought a brutal three-year long war that came with the revelation of genocide, they probably just don't care as long as Mexico doesn't make any trouble.
The Richmond Agreement (which I've been referring to as the Richmond Accords).
That thing where the Socialists handed back Kentucky and Houston to the Confederate States on January 7, and just over five months later (June 22, 1941) gets invaded with Kentucky being used as the springboard for the invasion of Ohio. The agreement which, in post-war United States, is going to be used to beat the Socialists over the head if they so much as think of getting out of Canada or handing over territory. TL-191 Democrats won't accept handing over Houston to Texas because it's going to be seen as rewarding Texas (who fought for the Confederacy) and that they won Houston fair and square (twice now), the Socialists won't push for handing it over because they're still going to be seen as the party that caved to Featherston, and the Republicans won't do anything because they're the .5 in the 2.5 party system.
I do have something to base this on.