Originally posted by Dean_the_Young
The war continues the same in the short run, but come election time with no TR to rally behind, war weariness puts Eugene Debs in the Powell House. He follows through with his pledge to make peace, and both Britain and the CSA accept the terms status quo ante bellum. The US loses the Sandwhich Islands, all gains on both fronts, and loses Kentucky in a plebescite for a second time. Germany, left alone, is torn apart as the Entente focuses on the last big foe. Because barrels never saw widespread use, only a bare handful on all sides recognize their potential.
However, back home the US experiances domestic troubles like none ever seen before. Though territorily North America is back to status quo ante bellum, Britain, Canada, and the CSA resume their policy of encirclement, and soon return for making demands with economic and military threats. President Debs is soon forced with having to sign a demilitarization treaty that clearly favors Canada and the CSA, and other humiliating acts such as "mutual reparations treaty" which is nothing more than repriations to Canada and the CSA. Even Utah is not exempt; the autonomous region of Deseret is immune to federal enforcement of laws. To top it off, the Entente quietly insures that the Socialists don't lose power through political intrigue. There was no just peace, only a return to humiliation.
Hyper inflation comes slower than in Germany, but it comes. The millions of men conscripted for the Army, an Army that was largly winning with gains in all fronts and beating back the Confederate's own thrust, are out of jobs. Settling in the frontier is no longer a safety valve for dissatisfaction; the bubble is quick to grow. Veteran riots are the first symptom, and then the loss of federal control over the police. Though the Socialists are now out of the Powell House, the Democrats prove just as unable to end the economic woe. Years pass, and names such as McSweeney, Chester Martin, and Irving Morrel slowly come into importance.
When an increasingly worried Socialist administration (elected after over a decade of useless democratic rule) calls out the military to disperse the armed mob marching on Philadelphia, the chaos truly breaks out. The military establishment, furious over the Socialist administration and the hacking of military defense budget, refuse to obey socialist commands and permit the rioters into the de facto capital of the United States. The rioters, quickly immitated across the nation, go on a rampage. The military only stands by, and soon across America a socialist witch hunt has emerged.
Every prominant socialist and anti-war demonstrator is either hunted down or flees elsewhere. Not even the young "Conscious of Congress" is spared, shot by influential steelworker and Sergeant Chester Martin when she was caught trying to stop the bloodshed. Across the nation, lukewarm socialists are pressed either by the national humiliation or by the writing on the wall to reject the teachings of Marx and embrace the Remebrance Party ideology.
This is only possible because years have softened the Entente and the fact that the military is the only undisrupted part of the US. In Canada and Britain, relief at winning the last war is paired with never wanting to fight again, less the war not be ended as it was. In the Confederacy, the rich elite has been thinned by Yankee machineguns and the Red Rebellion killed many more. Though years have passed and the CSA is undergoing a period of economic prosperity, many in Richmond are concerned about the chaos in the north. Though they remain the masters of the continent and the ruling Whigs look at the chaos in the North as proof of Confederate superiority, certain individuals such as MAJ Potter remain concerned. The US still outweighs both the CSA and Canada, the red movement still hasn't been quashed, and no one is preparing.
Back in the US, a new order gradually emerges. Socialism in the US is now dead, on pain of death. Even the other parties are changed. Democrats, marred by their perceived weakness after the war when the US was once again encircled, are no longer the dominant force. The Republicans, who redeemed themselves during "the Socialist Cleansing", remain an increased faction. No, the new power of the capital is the Remebrance Party, which started before the Cleansing. Supported by the military establishment, by the former soldiers, and by any and all who thought the US had not truely lost the war. Though not headed by any single person as is the case with the Nazi Party in Germany, several figures rival and rule. McSweeney, Martin, Moss. Even Custer, during his last years, was an honored member. They are the dominant party, and are slowly enveloping the other two though there is no forceful coercion to vote Remebrance. The public now likes the Remembrance plan.
The refusal to pay debts was a major early success, especailly when it was revealed in a Richmond newspaper that the Entente was about to announce a releasal from the "mutual compensation" treaty. They're buildup of the military is also appreciated, and the Party is quite clear that they want their officers to be inovative and to fully use the US's resources, including a massive scientific base. Revenge on the anglosphere is also a big one, and probably the boogeyman. Socialists are the official scapegoat, though the Mormons are about as oppressed as blacks in the CSA, with tatoos always visible on their hands. However, race is not an issue in the US; as long as immigrants support the remembrance ideology they are mostly left alone.
In the end, the lack of opposition by the entente, who were worried about eachother as much as by Germany or the United States, were the end cause of the Axis victory in WW2. Though the US-German alliance was loose thanks to the perceived betrayal of the previous war, the end results were as desired by the right-wing countries. Barrels quickly took out France in the European front, and US barells with winter modifications similarly captured the key eastern Canadian seaboard, the western Canadian ports, and the central Winipeg railroad junction as clockwork, though the Canadian resistance through matters in doubt for a long time afterwards. Russia and the CSA put up more resistance, but Britain could not feed enough troops or supplies to either and slowly both were ground into total submission. The USA's indescriminate use of the new nerve gas is considered the tool that broke the Confederate's Tenessee River line, and the massive use of nerve gas on the white cities killed untold millions.
Eventually, the winter-prepared (with US assistance) German tanks crushed the western Russian industrial areas, and US barrells cut the Confederate resistance to ribbons, as not even Confederate General George S. Patton could compete with the numerous and much more advanced US Army's weaponry. When both the CSA and Russia were clearly knocked out of the fight, the British Empire sent out emmisionaries to explore the possibility of an armistace.
They were rejected through US pressure on Germany, when the US revealed in secret talks that they had a special weapon to use on the British Empire that would be finished in less than a year. A slow, starving naval war commenced. Though the US never repeated the early naval success of the first world war, she and germany slowly starved Britain. Then, in the last year of the war, US planes from France dropped 3 atomic bombs on Britain's three largest non-Irish cities.
In return for the survival of their people, Great Britain was forced to let go all their imperial possessions. With the exception of the Sandwhich Islands, every Britsh Pacific possession, including Australia, fell to Japan, who proved herself a harsh master. Nazi Germany annexed all she desired from Russia and France, and held down the the populations through sheer brutality.
The United States, though, was the cruelest victor. The Remembrance ideology had spawned an infinite hatred for all other anglo-nations, and the former Confederacy and Canada felt the boot. The Americans, no longer anything but a nation of willing fascists, enjoyed squashing resistance whereever they could find it, or if no resistance was present, incite it. In '48 Richmond was nuked when a US-incited uprising spiraled out of conventional control, and in '54 the US nuked London again when a ship load of weapons was intercepted between Canada (which suffered nerve gas bombings in sperate cities 45' and 47').
In the end, it was a mercy to the world (and this writer) that the US's overuse of nuclear weapons triggered a three-way MAD scenario between the US, Germany, and Japan in '60.
That just expanded, and spiraled out of control by the end.
