So How much is Japan supporting the Ghadarites? Also seems like the rebellion will last into 1916.
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Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
Not really at all, though they certainly sympathize with them (or at least the opportunities a free India would provide in shaking up the Asian status quo)
Perhaps!
So the winning side of the CEW is... Germany, Italy, and Japan? And "Axis powers" refers to the victorious US-Peru-Bolivia-Argentina alliance? TTL's people will be very surprised at the OTL WW2 Axis's general everything, I imagine.
They’d also be surprised by Benny the Moose being not only the propagator-in-chief of some weird nationalist-modernist philosophy called “fascism” that eschews the traditionalist right they’re used to but also the fact that he ditched the PSI
With the active involvement of the US in Korea and China I see lots of post-war military surplus and advisers travelling to China to assist in military modernization and industrialization. There also may be former Confederate veterans working for various groups in Asia.
Very true. China, as a beacon of Asian republicanism and having fought its own civil war against “reaction,” may in particular be an attractive place for such-minded American expats
They took that from the IT after the Civil War? (The northern border of Texas from 1848 onward left that land to the federal government because otherwise it goes north of 36'30")
So, still in 1914, but I got a question about Canada.
The Orangeisation of Canada is a very interesting trend, but I've had some difficulty understanding why Macdonald stepped down early ITTL, in favor of Tupper if I remember right. OTL he stayed on until his very death, though my lack of comprehension translates more a lack of knowledge about that era of Canadian politics (well, to be honnest, there are no other era I'm particularly familiar with beyond the great lines) than any criticism. So, why is it I missed in reading ?
The Orangeisation of Canada is a very interesting trend, but I've had some difficulty understanding why Macdonald stepped down early ITTL, in favor of Tupper if I remember right. OTL he stayed on until his very death, though my lack of comprehension translates more a lack of knowledge about that era of Canadian politics (well, to be honnest, there are no other era I'm particularly familiar with beyond the great lines) than any criticism. So, why is it I missed in reading ?
Yeah
Lol good point. No “Rape of Belgium” here, that’s for sure
fair q. OTL Macdonald did want to retire in the mid-1870s but he lost an election to otherwise non-entity Alexander Mackenzie and became thus convinced that he and he alone held the Tory coalition together. Charles Tupper was his preferred successor in the 1870s and so that’s why I went with him
Of course YMMV on whether that’s actually why Macdonald chose to stay around, but that was the idea I had at least
American Charlemagne: The Trials and Triumphs of Charles Evans Hughes
"...much of his appeal had been not just in his modest personality - after the aloofness of the bon vivant John Hay, the stodgy conservatism of Joseph Foraker, and the larger-than-life media hounding of William Randolph Hearst - but also moderate politics as Governor of New York. As the end of 1915 came about, however, that was perhaps no longer an advantage, and Hughes knew it as well as anyone, and as he returned from San Diego to spend Christmas in Albany, he ruminated on his future a great deal both in his private train car and while meeting ordinary Americans on the route back, especially alongside Mann in Chicago, where Hughes and the former Speaker spent several days visiting factories, hospitals, training camps and fraternal societies.
The ebb in his relationship with Mann perhaps more than anything persuaded Hughes that he had arrived at the limits of what he could accomplish as President. The moderate Illinoisian had always been Hughes' most important ally in Congress, but Mann had grown enormously frustrated with the administration, not purely on political matters but personal ones as well. He had felt even more slighted than Speaker Clark over not being invited to Long Branch to "plot the end of the war" despite his importance on the Special Committee on the War, in part due to his previously close relationship with the President. He had been aghast that more effort had not been taken to corral bad apples like Ballinger and that the scandal had now driven a deep rift within the Liberal Party and between Congress and the executive. More than anything, though, he felt that the workmen's compensation battle that consumed much of 1915 on the domestic front had seemed to turn into a matter exclusively for Hughes and George Norris to handle, and that when asked to whip in the compromise bill's favor, Mann had been forced - as a favor with little to show in return - to eat an act that progressives of both parties did not think went far enough and the Liberals' conservative wing thought was an atrocious surrender to the Democrats by the administration akin to implementing state socialism. That the threadbare at-fault federal accident insurance scheme had further damaged Mann's standing with his Liberal caucus while only burnishing Butler's image as a staunch defender of small government and made Norris a rising progressive champion permanently wounded the relationship between the two men; Mann would in future years describe passing the act as "walking the plank for the President."
Hughes thought the common Liberal complaint about him - that he preferred working with Democrats and that his economic policy in wartime was more radical than anything that the most ardent progressives had proposed in peacetime - was unfair, in part due to the national emergency of the Great American War and because to him it smacked as unpatriotic. It was not like the Ballinger Affair had not damaged the administration's standing with men like Kern or Turner, and it was more than clear that the workmen's compensation act he had signed as a federal version of his famed New York reform was seen by those like Norris as the first step to a considerably more robust welfare state once the war ended and Democrats were back in charge. The constant sniping from his own party's right flank left him even more exhausted than the wheeling and dealing with Democratic leaders, who Hughes at least admired for being willing to take half a loaf and find a workable compromise that left both parties satisfied and unsatisfied; the "Coalition of Curmudgeons," as he called his detractors within the Liberal Party, seemed to like opposition for its own sake. [1]
The truth was though that partisan concerns, as the calendar turned to 1916, did have to be acknowledged, even if Hughes was arriving at a point where he increasingly did not respect them. Suggestions quietly floated of a "unity ticket" between the parties the following autumn had gone out the window almost as quickly as they were raised, especially as the tide of the war had turned decisively in the United States' favor in early May; while most Democrats were pessimistic about their chances against an administration that had just led the country to victory, they nonetheless had little interest in joining forces with it politically and electorally. The Liberal state party machines were disinterested in that as well, and were increasingly disinterested in the Hughes administration - the progressive forces that had seized control of state machinery in the four years after the Pennypacker disaster had largely receded, with many major states, most importantly Ohio and New York, back in the control of conservatives of the old school.
These considerations - of a grueling election campaign as the war would likely be entering its fourth year, and of the promise of little domestic agenda that was recognizably the matters Hughes cared about either during or after the war - began to weigh heavily on Hughes as he read, prayed, and spent time with Antoinette and the girls. For the first time, the notion that he may simply forego nomination and focus on trying to end the war by the end of his term occurred to him as not only an option but perhaps his preferred one..."
- American Charlemagne: The Trials and Triumphs of Charles Evans Hughes
[1] To put it perhaps in blunter terms, Hughes is an example of a great administrator who is not so great at the wheeling-and-dealing of politics. A technocrat with charisma, in other words, which is what you want in charge during a war but maybe not its aftermath
(Also this is likely the last US politics update until the conventions for 1916 so that I can pick up the pace a bit, 1915 has been a slog lol)
The ebb in his relationship with Mann perhaps more than anything persuaded Hughes that he had arrived at the limits of what he could accomplish as President. The moderate Illinoisian had always been Hughes' most important ally in Congress, but Mann had grown enormously frustrated with the administration, not purely on political matters but personal ones as well. He had felt even more slighted than Speaker Clark over not being invited to Long Branch to "plot the end of the war" despite his importance on the Special Committee on the War, in part due to his previously close relationship with the President. He had been aghast that more effort had not been taken to corral bad apples like Ballinger and that the scandal had now driven a deep rift within the Liberal Party and between Congress and the executive. More than anything, though, he felt that the workmen's compensation battle that consumed much of 1915 on the domestic front had seemed to turn into a matter exclusively for Hughes and George Norris to handle, and that when asked to whip in the compromise bill's favor, Mann had been forced - as a favor with little to show in return - to eat an act that progressives of both parties did not think went far enough and the Liberals' conservative wing thought was an atrocious surrender to the Democrats by the administration akin to implementing state socialism. That the threadbare at-fault federal accident insurance scheme had further damaged Mann's standing with his Liberal caucus while only burnishing Butler's image as a staunch defender of small government and made Norris a rising progressive champion permanently wounded the relationship between the two men; Mann would in future years describe passing the act as "walking the plank for the President."
Hughes thought the common Liberal complaint about him - that he preferred working with Democrats and that his economic policy in wartime was more radical than anything that the most ardent progressives had proposed in peacetime - was unfair, in part due to the national emergency of the Great American War and because to him it smacked as unpatriotic. It was not like the Ballinger Affair had not damaged the administration's standing with men like Kern or Turner, and it was more than clear that the workmen's compensation act he had signed as a federal version of his famed New York reform was seen by those like Norris as the first step to a considerably more robust welfare state once the war ended and Democrats were back in charge. The constant sniping from his own party's right flank left him even more exhausted than the wheeling and dealing with Democratic leaders, who Hughes at least admired for being willing to take half a loaf and find a workable compromise that left both parties satisfied and unsatisfied; the "Coalition of Curmudgeons," as he called his detractors within the Liberal Party, seemed to like opposition for its own sake. [1]
The truth was though that partisan concerns, as the calendar turned to 1916, did have to be acknowledged, even if Hughes was arriving at a point where he increasingly did not respect them. Suggestions quietly floated of a "unity ticket" between the parties the following autumn had gone out the window almost as quickly as they were raised, especially as the tide of the war had turned decisively in the United States' favor in early May; while most Democrats were pessimistic about their chances against an administration that had just led the country to victory, they nonetheless had little interest in joining forces with it politically and electorally. The Liberal state party machines were disinterested in that as well, and were increasingly disinterested in the Hughes administration - the progressive forces that had seized control of state machinery in the four years after the Pennypacker disaster had largely receded, with many major states, most importantly Ohio and New York, back in the control of conservatives of the old school.
These considerations - of a grueling election campaign as the war would likely be entering its fourth year, and of the promise of little domestic agenda that was recognizably the matters Hughes cared about either during or after the war - began to weigh heavily on Hughes as he read, prayed, and spent time with Antoinette and the girls. For the first time, the notion that he may simply forego nomination and focus on trying to end the war by the end of his term occurred to him as not only an option but perhaps his preferred one..."
- American Charlemagne: The Trials and Triumphs of Charles Evans Hughes
[1] To put it perhaps in blunter terms, Hughes is an example of a great administrator who is not so great at the wheeling-and-dealing of politics. A technocrat with charisma, in other words, which is what you want in charge during a war but maybe not its aftermath
(Also this is likely the last US politics update until the conventions for 1916 so that I can pick up the pace a bit, 1915 has been a slog lol)
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Called it an unforced error at the time and look where we are now. All you had to do was invite the guy to the meeting - you didn't have to listen to a word he said.
I mean, if I were Hughes and I had John Kern going out of his way to give me everything I wanted in the Senate no questions asked and no pushback I'd prefer working with him over guys like Penrose and Lodge too!
My feelings on Hughes are well-known but I can't fault the guy his general kindness or good heart. I'd much rather have him as a neighbor or father-in-law [1] than William "Logan Roy" Hearst. It is also a pretty politically savvy move to get out before things really go to hell - if the occupation of Kentucky and Tennessee is anything to go by, Hughes can see that the occupation of the CSA writ large is going to be long, expensive, and bloody. It also does explain the universal high regard he's held in by historians ITTL - a President quitting instead of winning an easy second term is catnip to guys like that. Historians love them some Cincinnatus after all.
[1] With the important caveat that being Hearst's SIL is probably good for my bank account if bad for my stress level.
A number of y’all did predict Hughes would bounce, so indeed congrats. This wasn’t the original plan but it did fit what I eventually came up with better, otherwise this book may have been called “American Cincinnatus” which is a bit on the nose 😜
On Drugs and Alcohol:
In OTL During World War, the government provided cigarettes to soldiers to help ease boredom and reduce stress.11 Prior to the war, less than 0.5% of American people regularly consumed cigarettes. By the war’s end, approximately 14 million cigarettes were distributed daily.
According to Lukasz Kamienski, a political science professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, and author of Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War, cocaine also became a drug of abuse on the frontlines. People turned to the drug to boost energy, combat fatigue, and reduce wartime anxiety. It gained popularity when the British army created a drug known as “Forced March,” a combination of cocaine and a cola nut extract. People then began to self-prescribe the drug as a wartime aid.
Many of the soldiers’ wives and girlfriends sent packages of cocaine and heroin purchased from London pharmacists labeled as “useful presents for friends at the front” or sometimes “welcome presents for friends at the front.”
In this world I see the similar situation happening except the Americans buy tobacco from other lands to spite the Confederacy. Opium may be exported from China and Southeast Asia by various Chinese warlords or corrupt officials to make extra money. There may be a crackdown on Cocaine and Heroin post war in both the Union and Confederacy but the amount of money to be made may sway many people, especially in the post-war South. Ports like New Orleans, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York will have problems with smuggling along with the whole Mississippi River. The Union may introduce 'Sin Taxes' on cigarettes, tobacco and liquor to pay for health care. Expect many veterans having to deal with withdrawals post war.
References:
In OTL During World War, the government provided cigarettes to soldiers to help ease boredom and reduce stress.11 Prior to the war, less than 0.5% of American people regularly consumed cigarettes. By the war’s end, approximately 14 million cigarettes were distributed daily.
According to Lukasz Kamienski, a political science professor at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora, and author of Shooting Up: A Short History of Drugs and War, cocaine also became a drug of abuse on the frontlines. People turned to the drug to boost energy, combat fatigue, and reduce wartime anxiety. It gained popularity when the British army created a drug known as “Forced March,” a combination of cocaine and a cola nut extract. People then began to self-prescribe the drug as a wartime aid.
Many of the soldiers’ wives and girlfriends sent packages of cocaine and heroin purchased from London pharmacists labeled as “useful presents for friends at the front” or sometimes “welcome presents for friends at the front.”
In this world I see the similar situation happening except the Americans buy tobacco from other lands to spite the Confederacy. Opium may be exported from China and Southeast Asia by various Chinese warlords or corrupt officials to make extra money. There may be a crackdown on Cocaine and Heroin post war in both the Union and Confederacy but the amount of money to be made may sway many people, especially in the post-war South. Ports like New Orleans, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York will have problems with smuggling along with the whole Mississippi River. The Union may introduce 'Sin Taxes' on cigarettes, tobacco and liquor to pay for health care. Expect many veterans having to deal with withdrawals post war.
References:
So, with this war and the whole European war that either happened, or will happen few months later, I expect that every single social change that happened after WW1 will happen, except somehow even more radical and fast.
Certainly going to focus on the one-term Presidencies like you said...
This is terrific stuff
True
Absolutely. Another voluntary one-termer up ahead, obviously, though he will have very different reasons for not seeking a second term…