It annexed almost everything it held right up to the front line on armistice day.
Timeline-191: Changes?
- Thread starter Gaius Julius Magnus
- Start date
It annexed almost everything it held right up to the front line on armistice day.
And the Allies took more territory from Germany than they had 11-11-1918.
Either way, Kentucky is larger than Alsace-Lorraine, and so is Sequoyah I assume. Then there are chunks of Arkansas, Sonora and Virginia, no puny changes on the map there. And then there is something like what, between 30-40% of Texas taken, too?
And of course the entirety of Canada, Newfoundland, the Bahamas, Bermuda and Hawaii. But even ignoring the massive hit to the British Empire and just focusing on the CSA the United States won a very hefty chunk of land out the war. How anyone can look at this list and then say that that was not enough is beyond me.
Personally, when it comes to butterflies and pods in the far past, I try to keep things simple.
For example, Newt Gingrich was born in Pennsylvania, not Georgia; so if I went with a CSA Winning tl, Gingrich would be the fatass, hypocrite congressman from Pennsylvania.
Maybe go a step further and have different relationships and careers ; i.e. President Laura Welch nee Blythe or Barack Obama playing the son of James and Nyota Kirk (my ideas thank you)
But, going back decades after decades, researching each individual character, transforming their life, and still having an understandable story for the readers and myself, is a gargantuan task; which is usually the reason I write about the 19th and 20th centuries.
I went nuts trying to figure out scenarios and characters, and that was just for High School and College writing.
Also, I had to reread the World War novels (which I like the best) to be able to comprehend and imagine the Lizard's weapons and sciences. I imagine that there were many like me whom had that issue, so sometimes an author may dumb things down.
In closing, if I had a publisher backing me, an office to do all my work, and a personal assistant to keep me sane; I would bust my ass to come up with some brilliant changes. For now, I am writing for pleasure and hopes of publishing or selling a story.
P.S. I am saving the two ideas for myself.
For example, Newt Gingrich was born in Pennsylvania, not Georgia; so if I went with a CSA Winning tl, Gingrich would be the fatass, hypocrite congressman from Pennsylvania.
Maybe go a step further and have different relationships and careers ; i.e. President Laura Welch nee Blythe or Barack Obama playing the son of James and Nyota Kirk (my ideas thank you)
But, going back decades after decades, researching each individual character, transforming their life, and still having an understandable story for the readers and myself, is a gargantuan task; which is usually the reason I write about the 19th and 20th centuries.
I went nuts trying to figure out scenarios and characters, and that was just for High School and College writing.
Also, I had to reread the World War novels (which I like the best) to be able to comprehend and imagine the Lizard's weapons and sciences. I imagine that there were many like me whom had that issue, so sometimes an author may dumb things down.
In closing, if I had a publisher backing me, an office to do all my work, and a personal assistant to keep me sane; I would bust my ass to come up with some brilliant changes. For now, I am writing for pleasure and hopes of publishing or selling a story.
P.S. I am saving the two ideas for myself.
The majority of those were occupied by the time of the armistice if I remember correctly. While very few people lived in Western Texas and even fewer in Sonora. Although, if some weren't, don't hesitate in correcting me. I was just saying that, in the contect of TL-191's 1917, the US doesn't need to bargain for what it wants. It had clearly broken the CSA's ability to keep fighting by then, and could force the CSA into giving up what it desires, in exchange for peace. Similarly, the Allies had broken Germany's ability to keep the War going by late 1918, and could force the Germans to give up what the Allies desired (parts of France, most of Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine), if they wanted the War to end.
Now, I am not saying that the US isn't biting off more than it can chew. Especially so if it goes the route of the WAllies in WW1 and wants to get fat from its winnings, but not have to fight again (either from a resurgent CSA, or Insurgencies in conquered territories).
I think that part of why people think the US should have taken more from the CSA is that the US should have focused more on taking from the Confederates than say, the British. The US has at least some claim to much (if not all) of the CSA, and it could be easier to occupy them than Canada*. Not to mention the US has spent the entire series trying to crush the CSA and Remembrance seemed to be more about Revanchism against the Confederacy than the British. Getting revenge against the CSA is the only reason the US got involved in the Great War and the Quadruple Alliance in the first place. However, when the US finally wins, they go and give their most hated enemy a relative slap on the wrist, slice off a few pieces of the CSA in what seemed more like a negotiated, than dictated, peace and give them some reparations that didn't seem like all that much (compared to Versailles). They then proceed to focus their efforts on dealing the biggest blow they can to the UK and try their best to dismantle their entire empire in North America and most of their empire in the Pacific. If anything, it seemed like the US was acting out of character at the end of the First Great War.
* = That is based on the train of thought that since the Confederates used to be Americans not that long ago, and therefore would be easier to subdue than the Canadians. Of course, it could be the other way around with the Confederates more prone to rebellion than the Canadians.
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I wouldn't call losing Kentucky, Sequoyah, much of Texas and Virginia and pieces of several other states in addition to a disarmed and shrunken military that could barely police the newly-emboldened black population, incapacitating economic reparations intended to reduce the CSA to a third-rate power, and a crippling blow to prestige and stability with the very direct threat of further devastation should the CSA even fart out the wrong ass a "relative slap on the wrist."
MarshalBraginsky
Banned
Freedom Party platform: I'm guessing other than revenge, maybe an FDR-esque economical recovery program that gives jobless Confederates an actual job, albeit with very low pay but with free meals and housing?
I remember something about flood control along the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers in the book.
A credible opposition to the Freedom Party at some point: the Communists and the Nazis had some seriously nasty street fights in OTL, but most of what we got here was "Pinkard and Co. beat down some stupid Whigs who can't work out that the Freedom Party guys always bust up their rallies."
Maybe Reggie Bartlet, in the Radical Liberal camp?
Maybe Reggie Bartlet, in the Radical Liberal camp?
Their platform was also about putting people back to work, you know, things like river control, electrification and infrastructure, etc. It wasn't all about re-arming and keeping the black man down, though obviously that was what truly interested the Snake.
The war had passed through both states well before the cracks in the CSA really began tearing things apart.
Bartlett wasn't a brawling type, and nobody, not even the Radical Liberals themselves took the Radical Liberals seriously. As I recall, Potter tried hard to use Freedom Party tactics but was usually pushed off to the side.
He was the only PoV character in the South that wasn't on board with the racism and murder thing enough to ride along with Featherston. I just wanted something, anything other than another round of Pinkard beating up Whigs.
Which was meh, approximately as exciting as the Reichsbanner in terms of doing something other than getting their skulls cracked by Freedom Party goons.
Hmm, maybe my objection is that it became very clear very early on that Featherston was going to be Dixie Hitler, and it was just a question of when, unlike IOTL, where that was very much not the case.
As admittedly implausible as the parallelism in the story is, I don't mind it, because it makes for a good story. The story shows how fascism, genocide, and war could've happened anywhere, even in America, which in OTL was spared from the worst excesses of the 20th century. I appreciate it for that theme alone.
Now, off the top of my head, some things I would change:
-I agree that the Freedom Party's platform needed to be elaborated on.
-Even though I said I don't mind the parallelism, I would've liked it if they did more to play up the ways in which Featherston and the Freedom Party are different from Hitler and the Nazis. There were kernels of this here and there in the story, but I would've liked to see more. Emphasize how Featherston had a different temperament from Hitler (in most cases, the Snake actually came across as braver, more hardworking, and less tolerant of B.S. than his OTL counterpart). Also, do more to explain the Freedom Party's ideology, and how their white supremacy differs from Nazism (whereas Nazism had an air of mysticism, claiming that the German race was destined through blood to rule the world, the Freedom Party racism seemed a lot more practical and provincial in character, basically saying that killing all the blacks was the most straightforward way of "solving" the Confederacy's race problem).
-Tell us more about what's going on in Europe! Turtledove created this very intriguing scenario there, with a German victory in WWI, a surviving Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire, an even longer and more painful Russian Civil War that ends with a tsarist victory, a monarchist restoration in France, and the turn of Britain towards fascism...and we barely hear anything about it! This was probably one of my biggest dissapointments, because I really wanted to learn more about what things were like in this ATL Europe. What is life like in the victorious German Empire, Michael II's Russia, Action Francaise-era France, and Churchill and Mosley's Britain? How do the citizens see themselves, their countries, and the world? What sort of rhetoric do the leaders use to rally support? Sadly, all of this intriguing potential was a barely-mentioned sideshow, and while I get that the story is meant to be North America-centric, it's still dissapointing that such a tantalizing scenario was merely glossed over.
Now, off the top of my head, some things I would change:
-I agree that the Freedom Party's platform needed to be elaborated on.
-Even though I said I don't mind the parallelism, I would've liked it if they did more to play up the ways in which Featherston and the Freedom Party are different from Hitler and the Nazis. There were kernels of this here and there in the story, but I would've liked to see more. Emphasize how Featherston had a different temperament from Hitler (in most cases, the Snake actually came across as braver, more hardworking, and less tolerant of B.S. than his OTL counterpart). Also, do more to explain the Freedom Party's ideology, and how their white supremacy differs from Nazism (whereas Nazism had an air of mysticism, claiming that the German race was destined through blood to rule the world, the Freedom Party racism seemed a lot more practical and provincial in character, basically saying that killing all the blacks was the most straightforward way of "solving" the Confederacy's race problem).
-Tell us more about what's going on in Europe! Turtledove created this very intriguing scenario there, with a German victory in WWI, a surviving Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire, an even longer and more painful Russian Civil War that ends with a tsarist victory, a monarchist restoration in France, and the turn of Britain towards fascism...and we barely hear anything about it! This was probably one of my biggest dissapointments, because I really wanted to learn more about what things were like in this ATL Europe. What is life like in the victorious German Empire, Michael II's Russia, Action Francaise-era France, and Churchill and Mosley's Britain? How do the citizens see themselves, their countries, and the world? What sort of rhetoric do the leaders use to rally support? Sadly, all of this intriguing potential was a barely-mentioned sideshow, and while I get that the story is meant to be North America-centric, it's still dissapointing that such a tantalizing scenario was merely glossed over.
I would have liked to see more efforts toward moving Canada towards statehood. Otherwise it seemed like no US person had any idea on what to do with it once they conquered it.
Like that one client of Moss said (paraphrased) when challenging US military rule: "Keeping military rule just angers everyone. Either give us your precious Constitution or let us go."
Like that one client of Moss said (paraphrased) when challenging US military rule: "Keeping military rule just angers everyone. Either give us your precious Constitution or let us go."
I tried a 191 TL awhile back. In my head it was:
- Longer Red Rebellion, which really shapes post war opinions of blacks.
- Multiple post-war CSA parties, which eventually break up or form into small state centered parties.
- Huey Long takes power as a Radical Liberal stressing improving education, infrastructure, and prepping for return of CSA lands, which soon evolves into actual warmongering.
- Canada is made into three separate nations (Quebec, center, and west coast)
- Russian Alaska invaded
- Japan makes political moves leaning towards favoring Germany and the UK, leaving the Anglo-Japanese alliance.
- Serious wide spread government cut backs by the Midwest Socialists (pro-union, pro-farmer, anti-big government) leading to a weaker and smaller conscript army for the USA.
- CSA and USA get no nukes.
Sean Mulligan
Banned
The U.S. giving back Western Texas and Kentucky made no sense. Its supposed to be a parrallel of Allied Appeasement of Germany but Britain and France only gave away other countries territory not their own and only did so because they wanted a strong Germany that would be a bulwark towards Communism. The U.S. has no similar motivation to return conquered land to the Confederacy.
There's the Saar. Granted, it's a weak example and I'm not really going to defend it.
What I never got about the Richmond Agreement was the constitutionality of it. Al Smith meets with the Snake, and then decides without discussing with members of the other branches of government if it was cool to hold plebiscites in U.S. states?