TL-191: Filling the Gaps

DA_13, please allow me to compliment you on doing a very excellent job of work with these info-boxes; would you object if I were to use "Ophelia Wyatt Mitchel" in any future biographical articles on "Simple Mitch" himself? (I rather like the name, as it fits neatly with the tone one associates with CS President Mitchel - a man possessed with an occasionally overpowering sense of his own Dignity).:)

If one may suggest a small improvement to the information given above, I would like to suggest that you switch out Theodore G. Bilbo as Vice President; from what I can gather about the man, he's too blatantly a race-baiting populist and scandal-ridden to suit President Mitchel (indeed I believe Bilbo has been identified as a Freedom Party member in this thread already, which makes sense given his membership of the KKK in Our Own timeline; I tend to equate membership of the KKK in our History with membership of the Freedom Party in timeline-191), who is far more likely to prefer a more distinguished nonentity of unimpeachable respectability - if only to reassure Admirers that his deeply questionable candidacy in 1927 is not an outright criminal enterprise!

I've been looking through the Democratic candidates in 1928 (our timeline) and the most plausible alternative would appear to be Senator Pat Harrison - another native of Mississippi, but one who appears to have been the candidate of the Upper Classes and a more respectable figure than Bilbo (with whom he would appear to have nourished a Rivalry). He is also noted as having been a most loquacious man, which would undoubtedly help sell the less-articulate Mitchel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Harrison - more information may be found at the other end of this link.


N.B. This pick is intended to compliment your own idea of Vice-President Bilbo; I am not yet certain who my own "draft pick" for Mitchel's VP will be, but the front-runners are Mr Richard C. Watts of South Carolina (a justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court in our own timeline) and Mr Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida (the longest-serving senator in that State's history and a man apparently trusted by President Wilson with a number of positions).

Both are older men, both East Coast and neither seems likely to overshadow Mitchel* - I am inclined to prefer Mr Fletcher, since his connection with Wilson in Our History allows us to spin him as an olive branch to the "Wilson Whigs" (the more progressive wing of the Party) from the "Stonewall Whigs" (the social and financial conservatives assembled around Mitchel), but one acceptable to Mitchel by dint of his seniority and their shared service in the CS Senate.

*My take on Mitchel is a man who would want a competent subordinate ready to step into his place, but might place a little too much emphasis on subordination at times (not quite to the extent of surrounding himself with Yes-men by choice).

In regards to Ophelia Wyatt Mitchel, her name is actually a reference to Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway, the first woman to be elected to the United States senate in our timelime. She represented Arkansas, Burton Mitchel's home states.
 
wade_hampton_v_by_ironpiedmont1996-dchtvhv.png


These infoboxes are fantastic.

And Its not everyday that you can see impressive mustache's....like, I mean, wow!
 
Only this thread would get why I am excited. For years I have been reading the work of this historian Evan Thomas. He writes American history and has some great works on John Paul Jones, the Spanish American War, Eisenhower, Nixon and RFK.

Turns out he is the OTL grandson of Assistant Secretary of War Norman Matoon Thomas. The same Assistant Secretary of War that fires Custer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Thomas
 
Confederate General George S. Patton's Family Lineage:

9077_1033506910.jpg

Brig. Gen. George Smith Patton (1)
(June 26, 1833 – Late 19th Century/Early 20th Century)

George_Smith_Patton_1856-1927.jpg

D.A. George William Patton
(2)
(September 30, 1856 – June 10, 1927)

patton.jpg

General George Smith Patton (3)
(November 11, 1885-currently alive as of 1945)

1) Brig. Gen. George Smith Patton died in 1864 at the Battle of Opequon in OTL. In TL-191, he lived since the battle never occurred and continued to raise his son, George William Patton.

2) George William Patton never changed his name in honor of his deceased father, as he did in OTL. Presumably, he stayed and lived in the Confederate States, instead of going to California, where he grew up to be a District Attorney in Virginia, which is plausible.

3) Similar to Daniel MacArthur in TL-191, this version of George S. Patton is most likely a Genetic Variant of OTL's Patton. Same father but different mother, for example.

Complete Family History: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9077
 
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Confederate General George S. Patton's Family Lineage:

9077_1033506910.jpg

Brig. Gen. George Smith Patton (1)
(June 26, 1833 – Late 19th Century/Early 20th Century)

George_Smith_Patton_1856-1927.jpg

D.A. George William Patton
(2)
(September 30, 1856 – June 10, 1927)

patton.jpg

General George Smith Patton (3)
(November 11, 1885-currently alive as of 1945)

1) Brig. Gen. George Smith Patton died in 1864 at the Battle of Opequon in OTL. In TL-191, he lived since the battle never occurred and continued to raise his son, George William Patton.

2) George William Patton never changed his name in honor of his deceased father, as he did in OTL. Presumably, he stayed and lived in the Confederate States, instead of going to California, where he grew up to be a District Attorney in Virginia, which is plausible.

3) Similar to Daniel MacArthur in TL-191, this version of George S. Patton is most likely a Genetic Variant of OTL's Patton. Same father but different mother, for example.

Complete Family History: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/9077

Then How did George S. Patton’s family meet if his father never moved to California?
 
Then How did George S. Patton’s family meet if his father never moved to California?

The family (Ruth Wilson's) that George S. Patton's father met is not the same as the one he did in OTL; He never married Ruth Wilson. Instead of settling down in California and practice law, he did it the CSA and eventually married a different woman from a different family who gave birth to TL-191's version of George S. Patton.

It makes more sense than wondering why Patton's father would go to California now that he's in a different country with victories against the United States, marry the same woman, have the same son, and somehow have that same son move back to the Confederacy.

Turtledove decided to make him aligned to the Confederacy and this is what I came up with as a plausible scenario about how the Patton family continued to be Confederates.
 
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The family (Ruth Wilson's) that George S. Patton's father met is not the same as the one he did in OTL; He never married Ruth Wilson. Instead of settling down in California and practice law, he did it the CSA and eventually married a different woman from a different family who gave birth to TL-191's version of George S. Patton.

It makes more sense than wondering why Patton's father would go to California now that he's in a different country with victories against the United States, marry the same woman, have the same son, and somehow have that same son move back to the Confederacy.

Turtledove decided to make him aligned to the Confederacy and this is what I came up with as a plausible scenario about how the Patton family continued to be Confederates.
This Patton and OTL Patton seem remarkably
Similar. He’s probably the same person. Might I suggest that this Patton and his maternal grandfather both sought there fortune in Sonora, but returned to Virginia.
 
Another question I have: Did the Freedomites have anything similar to the Neo-Paganism stuff that the Nazis practiced (or so I have heard)?
 
The Freedom Party did not have any paganist stuff going on (and yes, the Nazis did have paganist ideas. There were even discussions between characters like Himmler and Hitler on the possibility of replacing Christianity with a paganist cult around the SS). They really didn't have much Christian stuff either, except for individual characters who made passing mentions to God. It was populist, it had socialistic economic platforms, but overall in the social arena, from what we saw in the books, it was more conservative than the NSDAP ever was. There were no Lebensborn projects headed by the Guards. There were no groups like the NS Frauenschaft. There weren't, IIRC, attempts to abolish class distinction and implement a racially harmonious society (Volksgemeinschaft). Really the Freedom Party was far better molded to American political realities than most people give Turtledove credit for.
Thats one of the reasons I like TL 191 (aside from it being my Third AH novel(s))

The reason I ask these questions is because I sorta stopped reading TL 191 during the American Empire saga, when I just lost interest, the Great War saga was definitely the highlight for me, and It would have been interesting to see the "Gordon Mcsweeney" scenario that everyone talks about play out.

Also, Speaking of Himmler, who would be the closest analog to Himmler in the books?
 
The last question I have at the moment is: What was the Military tech of other countries in the Central Powers and Entente during the SGW compared to OTL? Because I am pretty sure the books never talked about Europe that much during the SGW and I was wondering what ideas people here had.

Also, what goals did the Freedom Party have for the SGW and post SGW if they had won, because from what I read, they only seem to care about revenge against the North and killing their black population. Did they have any other goals in the books or any ideas discussed here that I missed?
 
I do have another question for the thread. I don't know if this has been talked about or speculated in this thread. It probably has, but in case not, I want to put this question out there for the thread to discuss.

As in OTL postwar-Germany with the display of Nazi flags, symbols, etc. being outlawed, would the open display of Freedomite and/or Confederate flags, symbols, regalia, imagery, etc. be outlawed by the US authorities?

I rather strongly suspect the answer would be "Yes!" for some pretty obvious reasons:

1) the US would want to quash any attempt to revive the Freedom Party and/or Confederacy or to keep the memory of either one alive in the minds of the Southern populace.

(in other words, I don't think there would be a "Lost Cause" -type movement in the former Confederacy)

2) the US would want the defeated Confederates and the Freedomites to know absolutely and completely that they are DEFEATED. The best way to do that is to outlaw the display of Confederate flags, Freedom Party symbols, etc., probably being severely punished, by death, if necessary.

They want the Southerners to KNOW that they have been crushed, and any attempt to keep the memory of the Confederacy and/or Freedom Party (and what it stood for) will be stamped out.

So, in my view, it would be pretty much like how postwar Germany outlawed the display of Nazi symbols, flags, etc. only with the punishment for doing so being very, very severe.

(I can easily imagine former Confederates and/or Freedom Party members finding out the hard way that you DON'T want to piss off the US authorities by doing ANYTHING even remotely like that, as in, if you try something that stupid, you end up a corpse left out on the street or hanging from a lamp post, left as an example to others, or you just simply disappear off the face of the earth)
 
Only this thread would get why I am excited. For years I have been reading the work of this historian Evan Thomas. He writes American history and has some great works on John Paul Jones, the Spanish American War, Eisenhower, Nixon and RFK.

Turns out he is the OTL grandson of Assistant Secretary of War Norman Matoon Thomas. The same Assistant Secretary of War that fires Custer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Thomas

I sometimes like to think that the Internet was made so that we could all have unlimited access to such tidbits of tasty, tasty Trivia ... and well ALL Know it was invented for Thirtsy Nerds like us!;)
 
So, in my view, it would be pretty much like how postwar Germany outlawed the display of Nazi symbols, flags, etc. only with the punishment for doing so being very, very severe.

I wonder if the USA Authorities would refer to this as "Reconstruction" or "Deconstruction"?
 
Thats one of the reasons I like TL 191 (aside from it being my Third AH novel(s))

The reason I ask these questions is because I sorta stopped reading TL 191 during the American Empire saga, when I just lost interest, the Great War saga was definitely the highlight for me, and It would have been interesting to see the "Gordon Mcsweeney" scenario that everyone talks about play out.

Also, Speaking of Himmler, who would be the closest analog to Himmler in the books?

Turtledove combined real-life members of the Nazi party and from the Nazi German government into single characters.

However, I also saw some resemblance of other people from these same characters. Perhaps it was an accidental side effect from Turtledove's writing.

For example, even thought Jefferson Pinkard was supposed to be a Rudolf Höss analog, he reminded me of Amon Göth.

I just can't get over that name "McSweeney." If he ever wanted to become a Hitler he'd need to drop that name for something like "Sweeney" or "Strong."

I'm actually okay with McSweeney's name, because perhaps it's supposed to be ironic. Not every name has to sound scary. There was a time when the surname Hitler didn't even instill fear in the hearts of men. Oh, and he wouldn't have become Hitler, but more like an American Stalin. If we want to avoid strong parallelism, then McSweeney should keep his name as is.
 
The Freedom Party did not have any paganist stuff going on (and yes, the Nazis did have paganist ideas. There were even discussions between characters like Himmler and Hitler on the possibility of replacing Christianity with a paganist cult around the SS). They really didn't have much Christian stuff either, except for individual characters who made passing mentions to God. It was populist, it had socialistic economic platforms, but overall in the social arena, from what we saw in the books, it was more conservative than the NSDAP ever was. There were no Lebensborn projects headed by the Guards. There were no groups like the NS Frauenschaft. There weren't, IIRC, attempts to abolish class distinction and implement a racially harmonious society (Volksgemeinschaft). Really the Freedom Party was far better molded to American political realities than most people give Turtledove credit for.

They also wanted to kill a third of the CSAs total population
 
But even Stalin changed his name.

All right, then.

Let's include a little bit more of parallelism.

Suppose Gordon McSweeney goes down a similar route of what Josef Stalin did. What could he have changed his name to? Strongman? Steelman?

Nah, I have some better to propose. How about using Biblical names/phrases to replace his current surname/both names, given his zealotry? I found a few: Amnon, Jareb, and El-neqamot. They each mean "faithful", "revenger" and "God of Vengeance", respectively.

Gordon Amnon? Gordon Jareb? Gordon Yareb? Gordon El-neqamot?

Amnon Jareb? Amnon Yareb?

Sources:
1)https://www.behindthename.com/name/amnon
2)http://namesforgod.net/god-of-vengeance/
3)https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/jareb/
 
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