Realistic CSA victory timeline

Sorry if I'm asking a perrenial question, but I'm new here, and have been reading about how an independant CSA would be nowhere near as successful as it's depicted in much of alternate history fiction. And would never in a trillion years get Cuba.

Would someone be so kind as to point me in the direction of a more realistic history, whether on the internet or published fiction (or internet-published fiction) for such a POD?
 
just a heads up you're gonna get a lot of negative remarks just for asking that question

He oughtn't. He just asked what already exists to help get him started. The negative comments come at those who ask the obvious questions as if they were the first person ever to think of them.

One of the Onkel Willie TL's invovlved a Confederacy that was totally defeated and reabsorbed by the Union following WWI. It might be "A Liberal German Empire? Not While I'm King of Prussia."
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
I began writing a communist CSA short story but it didn't get finished. Not sure when I set it, but the idea of the CSA going communist seemed pretty likely when I figured things out. Twas called "The Gator Rattler Flag"

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
just a heads up you're gonna get a lot of negative remarks just for asking that question


Depends on what he means as successful. If he means as successful as Spain or Italy not talking the US or GB he is going to take a lot of flack. If the says as successful as Mexico (Which last time I checked was still around) he will take considerably less.
 
I began writing a communist CSA short story but it didn't get finished. Not sure when I set it, but the idea of the CSA going communist seemed pretty likely when I figured things out. Twas called "The Gator Rattler Flag"

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

The problem is the whole racial element. Turtledove's black communist movement isn't implausible. A more radical "upcountry revolt" accentuating the populist sentiment among the white underclass isn't impossible either. But the two groups are unlikely to work together.
 
The problem is the whole racial element. Turtledove's black communist movement isn't implausible. A more radical "upcountry revolt" accentuating the populist sentiment among the white underclass isn't impossible either. But the two groups are unlikely to work together.

Agreed, you would wind up with two Communist movements with different goals. The Blacks would mostly want to free their brethern before commencing the final revolution while in the best case scenario for the Blacks is that the Poor Whites want the revolution right away and don't care about the Blacks one way or another.
 
Agreed, you would wind up with two Communist movements with different goals. The Blacks would mostly want to free their brethern before commencing the final revolution while in the best case scenario for the Blacks is that the Poor Whites want the revolution right away and don't care about the Blacks one way or another.

One of two things happen.

The first is that one group catches on that the other is reading Marx and becomes conservative in reaction.

The second is a very brutal civil war featuring ethnic cleansing of whites in the Deep South and blacks in the Upper South, and eventually a totalitarian regime imposed by the victors (probably the upcountry whites).
 
One of two things happen.

The first is that one group catches on that the other is reading Marx and becomes conservative in reaction.

The second is a very brutal civil war featuring ethnic cleansing of whites in the Deep South and blacks in the Upper South, and eventually a totalitarian regime imposed by the victors (probably the upcountry whites).


You could also have a real fight between the two Communist Parties both claiming to be true Marxist while the other is just a tool for "imperialistic capitalist dupes" . Having various Socialist/Communist parties squabbling about who the "True Marxists" are is far from uncommon.
 
You could also have a real fight between the two Communist Parties both claiming to be true Marxist while the other is just a tool for "imperialistic capitalist dupes" . Having various Socialist/Communist parties squabbling about who the "True Marxists" are is far from uncommon.

That's what I was thinking, more or less. In the long run, you muy see the CSSA begin to remove those leading black communists who survived the initial revolution - just as the leadership of OTL's USSR featured fewer and fewer Jews in the years after Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky.
 
That's what I was thinking, more or less. In the long run, you muy see the CSSA begin to remove those leading black communists who survived the initial revolution - just as the leadership of OTL's USSR featured fewer and fewer Jews in the years after Stalin outmaneuvered Trotsky.

I can't see that, unlike the Jews there simply wouldn't be enough Blacks with any sort of education to make it into the leadership. A signifigant percentage of Poor Whites should have gotten at least a high school education by the time the revolution broke out. The average Black revolutionary would be an escaped field hand.
 
The problem with confederate TLs is that many people get into AH because they are interested in the ACW. That means the number of noobs that makes CSA TLs/maps is astoundly bigger than every other theme, with all the problems that entails.

From my experience, they very often fall into two/three categories:

1) The CSA collapses in all out separatist wars within 10 years of its creation and is absorved by the USA.

2) The CSA abolishes slavery within 10 years and expands like a bloat on a map.

3) The CSA keeps slavery and expands like a bloat on a map. Enslaving everybody. And everybody seems to be okay with that.

Then you have the sub-cliches:

1) Right after the USA is pwned, in order to prove that it isn't a pussy, it successfully invades and annexes Canada

2) The USA really is a pussy, and after losing the ACW goes and dissolves in 4 or 5 countries - because.

Right before I continue, I have to say, I'm not American. I have not read as much on the ACW or know as much of mid-19th century America as most people on the boards do. But if I had to answer, I'd say that a realistic CSA TL should avoid all of the above. On the down side, that means that a realistic CSA TL would be pretty boring for most people willing to make a CSA TL. I could write how I would do it if you'd like, though.

http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-S...393329119/ref=pd_cp_mov_1/185-3790472-6586964

The main cases of failing history forever is having the CSA abolish slavery in the 1880s but it does aside from this lay out a scenario that meets more requirements of plausibility than TL-191 or frankly put a *lot* of published Civil War AH.

Confederate Cuba and the CSA and USA fighting for the Entente and CPs in WW1, respectively? That's 191 without the II Mexican War! :D
 

iddt3

Donor
He oughtn't. He just asked what already exists to help get him started. The negative comments come at those who ask the obvious questions as if they were the first person ever to think of them.

One of the Onkel Willie TL's invovlved a Confederacy that was totally defeated and reabsorbed by the Union following WWI. It might be "A Liberal German Empire? Not While I'm King of Prussia."
Can you link that? A search isn't turning it up.
*edit* Never mind, found it!
 

WeisSaul

Banned
In order for the confederacy to win, it would require either outside intervention or a g-dsend. I'm gonna go with the former.

Considering the British in OTL were very close to personally marching into the south and backing the confederacy, along with invading from the north and blockading American ports/breaking the American blockade, you have a future where the US and Britain are pissed. If Britain invades from Canada, they'd likely go straight for New York where two Russian fleets are waiting to fight the British and French due to an uprising in Poland and the Ukraine.

Considering France was right next door in Mexico at the time, and the US was supporting the Mexican republicans/liberals against the Mexican Empire and its foreign sponsors France and Austria, the Franco-Mexican war and ACW could link up.
-------------

The CSA would likely get Texas, Virginia, both Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Arkansas, and the Indian/Oklahoma territory.

Referendums would take place and fail in Kentucky and Missouri. Virginia would lose West Virginia (likely in a referendum) and its territory on the Delmarva peninsula.

France would demand a lease on New Orleans, Britain would want a lease on a Florida port like Tampa or Miami. They'd want it close to the Caribbean. This would piss off certain states seeing it as a breach of their sovereignty.

Britain and France, abhorring the practice, would demand an end to slavery. Considering the South claimed (falsely) that the war was fought the most over states' rights, and slavery just happened to be a small extension of said rights, the CSA would look hypocritical if it made too big of a deal over slavery. Sharecropping, segregation, serfdom, and living as second class citizens would become the replacement. Still, the slavery issue would create further tensions in the new Confederacy that would weaken the union as a whole.

The CSA would next lose some of its less devoted members, chiefly Texas. Considering the war was fought over the right to secede, once Texas pays off its debt it is going to milk that cow for what it's worth. It may claim portions of Oklahoma/Indian territory. The neutral strip is likely a given that Texas would take with ease.

The next state to break off would likely be the Indian/Oklahoma territory if Texas doesn't take it. Let's refer to it as Sequoya. Sheer ethnic and cultural difference would be the pretext. It may or may not join up with Texas willingly or forcibly, though it is unlikely that Texas, still getting its footing, would make such an aggressive action so quickly.

Of the 10 remaining states, the two Carolinas may break off as a bifederal state. They could declare they are doing so out of fears of state and national sovereignty being taken away by the British and French.

Virginia, now isolated with the secession of north Carolina (the Appalachians form a barrier separating Virginia from the already short Tennessee-Virginia state line) would just end up being absorbed by its massive northern neighbor. Virginia was already the most northern like of the southern states anyway, except for a few pockets around the south like New Orleans.

The US would want to be able to push down the Mississippi, and France would try to push its influence up. Arkansas would be taken by the United States, and Louisiana would be partitioned. Everything west of the river goes to the US, everything east would go to France.

The Florida panhandle, Mississippi, and Alabama would end up as one separate federal country with its own cultural sphere separate from the wealthier and less mountainous and more developed Georgia, and the more rugged cowboy like Florida. The territories of former west Florida in French Louisiana, and the appalachian regions of Georgia would come along for the ride.

The remaining two states (Georgia and Florida) would most likely end up as British a single bifederal British protectorate.

Considering the US would resent Britain and France, and likely have a stronger relationship with Russia and perhaps Prussia/Germany, the US will eventually take the British and French territories. Texas will either be taken by the United States as a vassal state or an annexed territory to be partitioned. Or on the unlikely side Mexico could get frisky and take a small portion of Texas.

If Sequoya joins Texas it gets annexed/vassalized. If it doesn't it definitely gets either conquered, or lobbies to join the US because otherwise it'll end up an economic backwater.

The Carolinas coastline, ports, and cities will be too tempting for the US to not Vassalize, domintate, and later annex.

The Redneck riviera nation will realize that without anything going for it, its really screwed, so it'll try to rejoin.

US efforts to challenge France and Britain in coordination with Prussia/Germany, Russia, and likely Italy will probably help it conquer portions of Canada (BC up to the 52nd parallel, the Maritimes, upper Canada, Newfoundland, Labrador, Quebec, PEI, Manitoba, Alberta, and it may try to establish a port on Hudson's bay). It will take more populated, more productive regions, while the rest of Canada will remain very much British.

The US will likely try to take the Bahamas and Bermuda too.

The US will likely accept North Borneo and Santo Domingo as states/territories. Without the South's more isolationist/racist votes in the Congress to muck things up, they'll pass finely.

Eventually the US will rack up enough to buy Alaska, the Danish VI, and it will likely try to purchase Baja California, Sonora, and Cuba. Spain won't sell Cuba, but a weakened and indebted Mexico may make a deal.

The Spanish-American war will likely start even earlier due to the US and Spain fighting in the far east. American North borneo and the Spanish Philippines being neighbors, things will get hostile. The US, being more expansionist and ideologiacal without the southern culture holding it back, may take the entire Spanish empire for itself: The Marianas, the Caroline Islands, the Marshall Islands, Spanish Guinea, Spanish Seharra, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. Spain will only keep the Canaries and Ifni.

Spanish African territories will make excellent US west Atlantic ports. Low population in said territories will make immigration easy. The US will likely try to vassalize Liberia, and perhaps annex it.

Morocco always had good relations with America. It was one of the first countries to recognize it. With an American colony just to the south, Morocco will be protected by America and France will not not be able to take over the country. Amero-Moroccan trade will be strong, and immigration will likely kick off earlier making a less Islamaphobic America. Spain may end up taking Spanish Morocco though.
 
Welcome to the forum; don't worry, no one's gonna get on you for asking a genuine question in a straightforward manner.

We really need to have a CSA Victorious index thread, though, like for Sealion.
 
In order for the confederacy to win, it would require either outside intervention or a g-dsend. I'm gonna go with the former.

Considering the British in OTL were very close to personally marching into the south and backing the confederacy, along with invading from the north and blockading American ports/breaking the American blockade, you have a future where the US and Britain are pissed. If Britain invades from Canada, they'd likely go straight for New York where two Russian fleets are waiting to fight the British and French due to an uprising in Poland and the Ukraine.
In which universe? In this one the Prime Minister of Great Britian Lord Palmerston made it very clear to his cabinet that he wanted to steer clear of any involvement in America. There was some talk about recognizing the CSA and some talk about hosting negotiations in cabinet the British PM wisely decided that the first might wind up in a war with the US which he did NOT want and the second was useless as Lincoln appeared totally uninterested in any negotiations. It was the BRITS who came up with the face saving excuse for the Trent Affair. Hardly something they would do if they wanted to intervene.
 

WeisSaul

Banned
I thought they would do it more over the Russians in New York than the Confederacy. A US forced to fight on two front war while having to use its navy to blockade Southern ports would be easier to take on than the US as usual. Aside from the fact that more of the more experienced army officers and soldiers were southern gave the south a tactical advantage. Economically 70% of all US exports were from the south. Though Britain and Europe as a whole was suffering from a shortage in grain at that point, they could have shifted imports to somewhere else like Argentina. But I'm getting a bit off point. You're probably right.
 
I thought they would do it more over the Russians in New York than the Confederacy. A US forced to fight on two front war while having to use its navy to blockade Southern ports would be easier to take on than the US as usual. Aside from the fact that more of the more experienced army officers and soldiers were southern gave the south a tactical advantage. Economically 70% of all US exports were from the south. Though Britain and Europe as a whole was suffering from a shortage in grain at that point, they could have shifted imports to somewhere else like Argentina. But I'm getting a bit off point. You're probably right.


They were never close to invading. Invading the US at this time would be madness. They already lost one war and was stalemated in another with the US when the US was much weaker. Unlike 1812 the US was the 2nd largest industrial power on the planet by 1860 and had numerous large cities that you would need to occupy. Do you know how many troops they would need to occupy New York, Chicago, Boston, Philidelphia etc? The cost would far, far exceed whatever they made off of cotton. The most the Brits would do is break the blockade and reinforce Canada to fight off an expected American invasion.
 
I wrote a shortlived TL which featured a victorious CSA. The POD had the british foreign minister to the US during the American "Volunteer" scandal which results in him not being replaced and so when the trent affair comes around he mishandles the situation and things escalate to British intervention in the war. Despite this, the CSA barely manages to survive(Virginia winds up being kept in the union due to Union troops occupying it at the end of the war).

I managed to get to the early 80's and things were shaping up to having a very militarized Union and a destitute CSA(fighting against an insurgent leftist KKK) going for a rematch. Brazil was industrializing earlier, Napoleon III was leading an increasingly aggressive France, and Russia was becoming a republic under a surviving Alexander II.

I was planning on having the US gain some extra territory down the line but not from Canada, and not by forceful conquest.
 
Top