TL-191: Filling the Gaps

[President Mahan]

So I am going to combine the first point in the whole Lodge (1913-1917). Again its a beast enjoy

 

[President Mahan]

Henry Cabot Lodge Part VII (1913-1917)

1913
Lodge returned to Philadelphia on New Years Day. His task was to lay the foundation for Theodore Roosevelt’s first few months in Office. Roosevelt could not arrive until after his successor Wallace MacFarlane was sworn in. Roosevelt wound need time to prepare his family and affects for their move to Philadelphia. Lodge arraigned an office for Roosevelt while he prepared to move into the Powell House. In the mean time Roosevelt and his family moved into his sister Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt Cowles’ Townhouse in the Fashionable Rittenhouse Square. Anna Roosevelt Cowles was married to William Cowles a Naval Rear Admiral, assigned to the Navy General Staff. [1]

While awaiting his inauguration Roosevelt went about the business of selecting a cabinet and paving the way for his aggressive reform agenda. Lodge was an integral part of his plans. Lodge had been a member of the Liberal Republicans when he began his career and continued to champion moderate social reform. While he had grown more conservative with age, he still supported most of Roosevelt’s reform agenda.

Lodge would be useful in working with Speaker of the House Henry Adams. Adams was a fellow reformer and a critic of the runaway capitalism of the age, but he was not the biggest fan of Roosevelt. The three were often social companions, but Adams often complained that Roosevelt was too quick to act without reflection. While Adams could be counted to corral the necessary votes in the House, the Senate would be more difficult. The Senate did not have nearly as many reform democrats. Instead Lodge and the other democrat reformers would have to coble together a coalition of socialists and republicans.

Even before Roosevelt’s inauguration Roosevelt made his presence felt on the National and International scene. First was the House of Lord’s rejection of the Third Irish Home Bill. Though passed by Parliament in 1912 the House of Lords ultimately rejected in early February. The Irish American community immediate held protest rally’s. Roosevelt, Lodge and Vice-President elect McKenna were quick to attend. Roosevelt praised the loyalty of the Irish American community and the success they had achieved in the United States. Noting the many Irish American Patriots including the soon to be sworn in first catholic Vice President. Lodge always mindful of Massachusetts’ powerful Irish catholic vote was quick to denounce Britain’s continued rejection of popular government. In a speech before a protest before the Ancient Order of Hibernians Lodge declared, had all Irishmen the right to vote Britain, could not afford to stop their independence. Lodge warned that like in its colonies across the Atlantic that only revolution may solve the issue. President Aldrich said nothing, watching all the progress he had made Britain evaporate.

On the domestic front, when suffragettes held rallies and parades in Philadelphia and later DC for women suffrage Roosevelt was in attendance. Roosevelt also visited the coalminers of Pennsylvania and West Virginia promising relief. Roosevelt promised to do more to protect the nations wilderness, as he had done as governor of New York when he created the Catskill and Adirondack State Parks. Roosevelt also gave a lectures at Valley Forge Staff College and the Naval Academy at Annapolis outlining his vision for further Army and Navy reform. Through out all this Lodge’s job was to assure party leadership that Roosevelt was not a revolutionary, but only meant to stave off revolution.

The Inauguration
In March of 1913 the U.S. government made its Quadrennial pilgrimage to the city of Washington DC. Along with the government were thousand of Roosevelt’s supporters; these included New York reformers, old members of the remembrance faction, veterans of the War of Secession, veteran of the Second Mexican War and especially members of the Un-Authorized Regiment. The sea of supporters added a jovial atmosphere compared to the last eight years. Further unlike Aldrich’s frozen second inaugural, March 4 1913 the temperature was a balmy 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

After eight years of out of the circle of executive power, Lodge had retuned to the first row of dignitaries behind the President. Aldrich stood on the platform in a winter coat dower and tired. Roosevelt despite his 54 years seems to leap to the podium in nothing but a suit. After Vice-President McKenna was swore in by his father Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna, Roosevelt took the oath of office. When the oath was complete the ceremonial field howitzers were fired and Roosevelt began a speech 30 years in the making. Roosevelt’s inauguration was brief and he seemed to bite each word tearing it from the air. He reminded the many blessings the American people had and the great price they paid them. The importance of maintaining our overseas alliances and the need to stand firm against Entente jealousy. More than any other presidential candidate he reminded the American people that the industrial age created new challenges the founders had not foreseen, which required new solutions. That most of all the American working man deserved a “Square Deal.”

With Roosevelt’s speech concluded the crowd erupted into applause. From there the days activities took on the air of a national celebration. Tens of thousands of westerners made the trip, despite being a native New Yorker, Roosevelt’s time and the west and his continued investment in the cattle industry made many feel like a westerner. Roosevelt was often seen as the first cowboy President. After much fanfare and the largest inaugural parade in the nations history, Congressmen and woman retired to the many Presidential Balls and galas. After a day of celebration Roosevelt and the rest of the government returned to Philadelphia to return to running the government.

Roosevelt's First Cabinet
• Secretary of State Robert Lansing
• Attorney General Charles Bonaparte
• Secretary of War Elihu Root
• Secretary of the Treasury George B. Cortelyou
• Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels
• Post Master General George von L. Myer
• Secretary of Industry Charles Nagel
• Secretary of the Interior Franklin Lane

Roosevelt’s first agenda was securing the ratification of the members of his Cabinet. Unlike Aldrich, Roosevelt chose to balance his Cabinet with Conservative and Reform Democrats. However it was clear from his choices that he would be pursuing a more progressive agenda then Aldrich. Roosevelt chose Reformers for important federal enforcement positions. For Attorney General Roosevelt chose Charles Bonaparte, a tenacious Maryland Attorney General and chairman of the Civil Reform League. For Secretary of the Treasury he chose George B. Cortelyou a defender of Aldrich’s Federal Reserve board and a critic of predatory monopolies except for important utilities. Frank Lane was selected as Secretary of the Interior Frank Lane a California politician, who was friendly to business, conservationist and was a westerner.

Roosevelt also added conservative members to his Cabinet. First was Charles Nagel, originally born in Texas before the war he immigrated to St. Louis after the War of Secession. There he attended George Washington University Law School and became corporate counsel for Adolphus Busch. Nagel supported the expansion of the Immigration and Naturalization Service to make it more accessible to the needs of businessmen. He also supported strong tariffs with the CSA, but making it easier for Confederate citizens to immigrate to the US. To appeal to Reed Democrats Roosevelt chose the conciliatory Robert Lansing. A prominent corporate and international Lawyer, he like Roosevelt believed in international arbitration. He represented the US as counsel for the North Atlantic Fisheries in the Arbitration at The Hague in 1909-1910. Lansing was a part of a growing school of international relations theorist that believed the US was best served by re-aligning closer to Great Britain.

For Secretary of War and the Navy, Roosevelt chose two Militarists and reformers Josephus Daniels and Elihu Root. Daniels got the position for supporting Roosevelt’s campaign, however he had been from a family of Shipbuilders. He supported adding more destroyers and cruisers to the force to attack Entente shipping incase of war. For Secretary of War Roosevelt, recruited his long time ally in New York politics and Remembrance Democrat Senator Elihu Root. Roosevelt wanted Root to spearhead a series of reforms that would complete Upton’s program. Roosevelt wanted Root to draft a new army bill that would clear house of many of the older conservative officers that were unfit for service and standing in the way of reform.

First Three Months
First item on Roosevelt’s plan for a "Square Deal" for all Americans was the passage of the Civil Service Reform Act. Civil Service Act had been the dream of good government reformers since the Railroad Scandals of the 1870’s. Though some measures had been passed by congress for test’s safe guarding new federal departments. Party bosses had blocked any significant comprehensive reform measures. Now with Aldrich gone and Henry Adams as speaker of House Civil Service passed on its first ballot of the House. The Senate was more difficult, Lodge was partnered with William Finn the 1912 Democratic Convention Chairman and Senator from Pennsylvania the two reformers cobbled the votes from the 20 odd reform democrats, three socialists and liberal republicans. In a ceremony, which included many of the surviving good government reformers from the 19th century, Roosevelt signed "for my father and the great reformers of the 19th century." [2]

Next Roosevelt turned to promises he made to give the working man a square deal. His first act was to pardon all labor leaders imprisoned by the Aldrich administration as a part of the Stevenson Anti-Trust Act. Next came the issue of child labor. Roosevelt had been instrumental in the banning of child labor in New York. Like Civil Service Reform, banning child labor had been a cause celebre of reformers for decades. The proposed statute before Congress sought to prohibit the sale in interstate commerce of goods produced by factories that employed children under fourteen, mines that employed children younger than sixteen, and any facility where children under sixteen worked at night or more than eight hours daily. The basis for the action was the constitutional clause giving Congress the task of regulating interstate commerce. Child Labor was already banned in many states, now under the police powers of the Police Powers of the 16th Amendment it was further likely to survive any constitutional challenges. Just as in the Civil Service Reform Bill, the reform coalition in the House and Senate held.

After the twin success of the Civil Service and Child Labor Bills the administration and it’s congressional allies turned toward defense matters. For years Great Britain and Germany had out paced the US in dreadnought production and nearly bankrupted themselves in the process. Growing demands of Liberal Parliamentarians for domestic spending meant plateauing and even shrinking defense budgets in both nations. As the US economy continued to grow faster than its European counterparts the US could afford to increase both military and domestic spending. Lodge and secretly Mahan behind the scenes had long been advocating for a new 4-4 naval bill, to pull past the European naval powers.

The new Naval Bill would include allocations for four new dreadnoughts each year , two of them to be the new Idaho class super dreadnoughts. It also included funding for an expanded force of destroyers and commerce raiders to attack Entente shipping. Adams a strident Anglophobe quickly locked down the votes in the House. Lodge had a more difficult task, the spending for the new bill would be a major increase to the national budget. if the Senate members were still nominated by the State legislatures it would not have be passed. However now that Senators were popularly elected few Democratic Senators could be seen challenging Roosevelt’s overwhelming popularity even far away from the coast in the western states.

To fund these new programs Roosevelt was going to have to find new sources of funding for the Federal government. The Balance Budget Amendment passed in 1870 after the Panic of 1863, required the federal government to balance its budget each year. Republican’s Liberal Democrats and Socialists refused any increases to the income tax. Secretary of Treasury Cortelyou instead proposed an increase in Corporate Taxes. The first federal income tax was enacted in 1861, and expired after the end of the war. A corporate income tax was enacted in 1887 to pay for conscription, but a key aspect of it was shortly held unconstitutional by the Garfield court. After ratification of the Sixteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution, this became the corporate provisions of the federal income tax. In 1899, Congress enacted an excise tax on corporations based on income to pay for Mahan’s naval expansion. Under Aldrich collection of the tax was lax to say the least. Roosevelt proposed new round of corporate taxes to pay for his increases in defense and domestic spending. Thanks to the 13th amendment most budget hawks felt required to pass it, the socialist and republicans were naturally quick to pass it.

Next the Congress turned to more benign legislation, which included the Newland Act that was a new round of anti- Asian immigration laws. The Kern Resolution, which was an investigation into the Paint Creek Cabin Strike in West Virginia. The Antiquates Act, which allowed the President to declare natural and ancient sites nationally, protected monuments. Finally was the Federal Trade Commission Bill, this was an expansion of the Wage- Price Control Bill. Roosevelt and other anti-trust politicians hoped the Federal Trade Commission would eventually be the organization that regulated trusts.

Army Reform Bill
Roosevelt’s last bill would be dearest to his heart, a new army allocation bill that would complete the reforms begun by Upton in the 1880’s. Since Upton’s dismissal there had been a struggle between reformers known as Uptonians and conservative officers. The Uptonians wanted to spend more on training, focusing on small units tactics and the quality of the individual American soldier. They also wanted to refocus War Plan Blue , the operative plan for war with the entente based on Upton’s original strategy. Conservative members of the war department lead by Chief of Staff Charles Adams continued to block these reforms, instead focusing on a bread butter strategy of overwhelming the enemy with superior numbers and economic resources.

Roosevelt’s plan spearheaded by Secretary of War Elihu Root called for a number of radical of changes, that would increase army spending. Lodge and Roosevelt had been reading the work of a radical Germany Army Colonel Eric Ludendorff. He argued that the Quadruple Alliance powers should increase their spending and conscription rates to that approaching France and the CSA. Despite Entente claims of US and German militarism, US and German military spending was both only 3.9% of their national product. This was only slightly larger than Britain at 3.4% and much smaller than France and the Confederacy at 4.8%. Both Germany and the US never conscripted more then 50% of their eligible population and no where near the 80% of the population CSA and the France conscripted. An increase in the conscription ratewould add another 300,000 to their active peacetime Army. The increases would make the United States and Germany equal in peacetime strength to the Quadruple Entente and prevent them from waging an aggressive war on Quadruple Alliance members. The bill also included the purchases of new Skoda made super howitzers, more funding for advanced infantry training, a dramatic increase in the number of Machine Guns per unit, research and development in motor cars, an expansion of the aviation section within the Signal Corp, more trucks for US logistics Corp and most controversial of all a new fitness test and mandatory retirement age of 65 for senior officers. The last provision would essentially cause the forced retirement of many of the nations +60 field commanders and Chief of Staff Adam’s.

After months of cooperation between Speaker Henry Adams and President Roosevelt, the new Army Bill was the breaking point. Adams knew the point of the bill was to remove his brother Charles Adams from his position as Chief of Staff. Here Lodge became the go between the two men. Adams made it clear he would squash the bill if it included the fitness requirement. Adams would also agree to the increases in army expansion, but it would have to be slow and not complete for another four years.

At first Roosevelt was apoplectic, he knew many senior commanders were not physically fit to command in the field.[3] For the last decade older officers like Charles Adams, George Custer, Nelson Miles and Hugh Scott, many in their mid sixties, blocked any tactical innovation. Growing up in the small volunteer army these men believed that it would take at least five years to train a proper soldier. As a result conscripts who were only in the service for two years could only be trusted with limited tactical training. New younger officers like John Pershing, Leonard Wood and Seymour du Pont believed conscripts could be given advanced infantry training. The kind of tactics being taught in many Confederate infantry basic training. At this point conscripts were taught merely to rush targets on mass with NCOs behind them to prevent stragglers, new training would teach fire and maneuver techniques.

Lodge and Root were able to calm down Roosevelt and in the end Roosevelt got everything he wanted except, that the army expansion would take five years to complete and their would be no fitness requirement or mandatory retirement age. Both the House and Senate passed the Bill, but only after a bitter fight which did not end until Congress retired for summer recess. [4]

Foreign Affairs
Roosevelt was ready to make waves not only in the US but abroad. After wrapping up his first three months Roosevelt to the outrage of President Wilson, he canceled their planned summit and instead became the first US or CS President to travel abroad while in office by visiting the Island nation of Haiti. His mission was to re-affirm the US treaty of friendship with the island and discuss a U.S. Navy base on the island. To add insult to injury he then secretly allowed members of what was known as the Red Council made up of black socialist revolutionaries to return to the United States.

In Asian affairs, Lodge convinced Roosevelt to officially recognize the Republic of China. Chinese nationalist and modernizers led by Sun Yat-Sen had recently over threw the decrepit Qing dynasty and declared China a Republic. Not knowing whether the new government would recognize European enclaves most European powers refused to recognize the state. With no Chinese enclaves the US had little to lose in recognizing the new government. Lodge also counseled that a China with close ties to the US could act as a counter weight to Japan. As a result the US and Republic of China signed a treaty of friendship and the US was the first nation to open lines of credit to the new government.

Most troubling on the international scene was the outbreak of a second war in the Balkans. By the early 20th century, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia had achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large elements of their ethnic populations remained under Ottoman rule. In 1912, these countries formed the Balkan League. The First Balkan War broke out when the League attacked the Ottoman Empire on 8 October 1912 and was ended seven months later by the Treaty of London.

The Second Balkan War broke out on 16 June 1913. Both Serbia and Greece utilizing the argument that the war had been prolonged repudiated important particulars of the pre-war treaty and retained occupation of all the conquered districts in their possession. Seeing the treaty as trampled, Bulgaria and Romania soon became involved and by July the Ottoman empire was pushed out of Europe except for its small enclave around Istanbul. Lodge and Roosevelt watched uneasily fearing the war may draw in Austria-Hungary and Russia. Fortunately it did not involve any of the great powers, however both Lodge and Roosevelt saw that a Balkan crises would be the event most likely to trigger a general European war.

Fall session
With Congress returning to for its fall session Roosevelt was convinced to push through more infrastructure projects. The first was the Hancock Highway. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, the highway was to run coast to coast. Roosevelt believed that infrastructure was one of the ways the US was superior to its southern neighbors, he believed that as a nation surrounded by enemies the US must be able to move men and supplies rapidly between the east and the west. Congress easily passed the measure as it meant thousands of jobs across the country and the and it was formally dedicated October 31, 1913. The Hancock Highway would run 3,389 mile coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City to Hancock Park in San Francisco, through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.

Roosevelt administration was also quick to push for emergency relief funds for the Great Lakes Region after a terrible winter storm ground the mid west to a halt. This was a major test for the relatively new National Guard system, their skillful handling of the situation was a testament to Upton’s Reserve system put in place more then two decades before. Despite all the successes of the first year, their was still push back to Roosevelt’s domestic reforms. The first constitutional challenges to Roosevelt’s child labor bill had already been filed.

1914
Domestic Affairs
Across the nation the impact of Roosevelt’s reforms could be felt. Roads were under construction, new exams were being administered for federal jobs, new army training ground were being constructed and tens of thousands of children were no longer employed and going to school. In January Roosevelt visited Michigan to tour the worlds first assembly line and praise Henry Ford for giving his workers a forty hour work week. Outside Mr. Ford’s plant Roosevelt promised even more reforms. Including an end to predatory trusts that stifle competition and raise the price of goods, a minimum wage law for women, an eight hour work day and Limited injunctions against strikes.

By and large most people had supported the end to child labor and Civil Service reform, however Roosevelt’s new proposals would directly affect business owners profits. After an increase in the Corporate Taxes the nations business owners were organized, threatening to unseat those Senators newly up for election in 1914. Led by Conservative Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania and Frank B. Brandegee of Connecticut. As a result opposition to Roosevelt’s programs hardened. His first Bill the Rivers and Harbors Act, which increased spending to improve the nations water born transportation, easily passed. But His next proposal for an eight hour work day, Roosevelt ran into his first true defeat. Old Guard Democrat as they were now being called were able to block a vote on the issue for months. A vote was stalled well into the summer. Roosevelt’s call for a national medical association to provide adequate health care for the nations poor also was moving slowly in the Senate. Roosevelt toured the country on behalf of both issues, but he could not even convince Lodge who called them a “radical intrusion into the affairs of private business." Lodge did not agree with Roosevelt with the extent of the need of the government to intervene in the economy on non-defense related matters. Roosevelt tried touting the Health care association as a defense issue, to ensure the American man was healthy enough to resist its enemy but to little avail. Not giving up Roosevelt proposed a Farm Relief Act, which would help extend credit to farmers and buy unsold grain incase of war time necessity. Again powerful forces in Congress attempted to block the President.

Frustrated with Congress’s inertia Roosevelt chose to use executive powers to offer relief. His first Act was to use the power of the Strategic Wage Price Control board to set railroad rates for farmers hoping to ship crops across the country. Railroad magnates protested, but there was little they could do. He then used the Wage Price Control bill to mandate an eight-hour work day in all munitions factories, armament factories, navy shipyards and other defense related industries. Next Roosevelt declared hundreds of the Nations natural wonders as landmarks, as a part of his powers under the Antiquities Act. This included hundreds of miles of the Grand Canyon, Old Faithful, the Devils Tower and more than fifty other natural wonders.

Constitutional challenges were immediately brought against the Presidents new executive orders. Roosevelt took his case to American people, he began a whistle stop tour of the country drawing huge crowds. A further victory came in late April when the Supreme Court upheld his Child Labor Law as a part of the Federal government’s police powers issue.

Opposition to Roosevelt’s Agenda
Not every American worker was happy with the Roosevelt reforms. Many socialist workers still considered Roosevelt a class enemy. Labor agitation also continued in both 1913 and 1914. These included a major Copper strike in Michigan, a silk workers strike in Paterson New jersey, Street Car workers strike in Indianapolis, an automobile worker strike in Detroit. Roosevelt tried his best to support mediation efforts, which led to some successes. Not all strikes were resolved peacefully. 1914 would see one of the worst incidents in labor history. A seemingly benign strike among Colorado miners resulted in what came to be called the Ludlow Massacre. The massacre was the culmination of a bloody widespread strike against Colorado coal mines, resulting in the violent deaths of between 19 and 26 people; reported death tolls vary but include two women and eleven children, asphyxiated and burned to death under a single tent. The deaths occurred after a daylong fight between State National Guardsmen, Pinkerton camp guards and striking workers. In retaliation for Ludlow, the miners armed themselves and attacked dozens of mines over the next ten days, destroying property and engaging in several skirmishes with the Colorado National Guard. Roosevelt relying on assessment of the conservative democrat governor of Colorado chose not to intervene. This decision would come back to haunt Roosevelt in the post-war period of labor unrest.

Roosevelt’s appeal threatened many orthodox Socialists. Roosevelt offer of reform with nationalist and militarist overtones, undermined the Socialist message of revolution and international workers solidarity. The fact that Roosevelt’s message was so popular was double threatening. To counter Roosevelt's New Nationalism, Socialists candidates and Republican isolationist joined forces to protest Americas continued drift into Prussian militarism. The Anti-Militarist League and Socialist Party staged rallies across the country. The largest was held in Union Square, Manhattan, which was attended by 5,000 to protest Roosevelt’s increase military spending. Several violent incidents that's day foreshadowed the Remembrance Day Riots the next year.

Roosevelt and the Remembrance movement responded decisively. Members of the Soldier’s Circle and the US armed forces threw the largest Remembrance Day parades in history. From Boston to San Francisco millions turned out for the parade. In Philadelphia Roosevelt ordered fly bies from dozens of the US reconnaissance planes, a parade of the newest artillery and armored cars. In Boston Lodge was “Commander” of the parade, which included a full review of the North Atlantic Squadron. Across the country soldiers had to be called in to protect Confederate, French and British Consulates and embassies from being destroyed by angry mobs. Confederate newspaperman William English Walling gave a vivid description of the rally in newspapers throughout the south. Most disturbing were the ominous chants of the Philadelphia crowd chanting for Roosevelt and Revenge. He never forgot Roosevelt’s Mechanical like face behind spectacles which did not show his eyes” and “Roosevelt’s which he bore in a predatory grinn.”

Third Balkans Crises

After a significantly more contentious spring then the year before both the President and Congress looked forward to summer recess. In late June Congress left for their home districts and Roosevelt joined his family on Long Island. Lodge was preparing to join his family vacationing in Maine when newd broke on June 28th that Heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by Serbian nationalists. Fearing the volatility of the Balkan’s situation Lodge immediately reached out to his contacts in the German and Austrian Foreign Offices. At first there were no indications that this matter seriously jeopardized peace in the region and Lodge left for Maine, but remained in close contact with the Senate.

However by July 4th intelligence from Berlin indicated that the Kaiser was pushing the Austrians toward war. Roosevelt and Lodge immediately returned to Philadelphia. Roosevelt made an emergency recall of Congress. It was becoming increasingly clear that Germany and Austria- Hungary were preparing demands for the Serbian government that were designed to be rejected. On July19th Secretary of State Lansing asked the Austrian ambassador whether they intended to make war on the Serbians. Ambassador Dumba replied to the Secretary of State: “If the Austro-Hungarian government is not going to abdicate forever as a great power, she has no choice but to enforce acceptance by the Serbian government of her demands by strong pressure and, if necessary, by resort to military measures.” He further stated that the an ultimatum to Serbia would come within the week.

Roosevelt immediately called a cabinet meeting, inviting also the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy and Senator Lodge. Its purpose to discuss what options were available should Austria Hungary declare war on Serbia. The meeting began with Secretary of State Lansing presenting what he felt was most likely to happen. Lansing believed that the prospect of war was unlikely. Despite Austria’s blustering, the Europeans would reach some sort of deal that would punish the Serbs, but allow Austria-Hungary to save face. Lansing suggested that the US support Britain’s attempt to mediate the great powers.

Lodge disagreed. Lodge believed that the Serbia was a destabilizing element in the Balkans. Lodge warned that the Serbs acted like an anarchist in the international system. The Serbs wanted to dominate the Balkans in a United Slavic State. They would continue to push the Austrians through terrorist attacks until Austria’s Balkan subjects revolted or war broke out between Serbia its Russian ally and Austria- Hungary. It was coming to a point for Austria-Hungary that war would be more preferable than slow disintegration, provided they have Germany's backing.

Lansing countered that if Germany backed Austria- Hungary and war broke out in the Balkans, this could be construed an aggressive war and the US would not be bound to declare war. After speaking to the Italian ambassador this would be Italy’s most likely course of action. Further that if war with Austria Hungary and Serbia broke out Russia would declare war on Austria Hungary, Germany on Russia and France would join as well. Lansing argued that by the terms of the Entente Cordial Britain would also not be bound to declare war as it has no treaty with Serbia.

One of the eventualities the Cabinet debated was if Britain remained out of the war, which Lansing believed they would. If the war remained only between the continental powers, should the U.S. Intervene? Roosevelt believed that in a purely continental matter the Quadruple Alliance powers would be the likely victors. However if Britain entered the war and threw behind the Entente the weight of the entire British Empire there was a good chance Germany would be defeated. However if Britain remained neutral and the Confederate States remained neutral, the US could act as a guarantee that Britain remained out of the fighting. Lodge pointed out that The U.S. would better be able to send aide to Germany with food and supplies, if the U.S. And Britain remained neutral. After hours of debate it was agreed that everything hung on Britain. If Britain declared war the Confederacy would be compelled to declare war or risk losing its allies forever. The US would then have to declare or risk losing its allies as well.

It was at this point that Navy Chief of Staff Sampson reminded Roosevelt that according to the Navy’s War Plan (which was classified to everyone except the President and Secretary of the Navy), the Navy required 6 days notice to be in place when war was declared. Chief of Staff Adams also reminded the President that full mobilization would take one week to be capable of beginning offensive action under the Modified Plan Blue.

At this point Roosevelt asked each of his senior service chiefs whether the nation was ready for war. Each responded that despite abhorring war the US was as ready as it ever was. Though the Navy was inferior in size to both the British and the German, neither could rival the US’s power in the West Atlantic or Pacific. The Army would like to have grown to a million men, but the US was still more powerful than the combined Armies of the CSA and Canada. Roosevelt adjourned the meeting until further developments.

On July 22nd the Austrian ambassador visited Secretary of State Lansing with a copy of the ultimatum to be delivered to Serbia the next day. Lansing immediately sent this to Roosevelt, who called an informal council of his closest advisors made up of Lodge, ex-President Mahan, Secretary Root and Major General Leonard Wood. From the text of the ultimatum it was clear that the Austro Hungarian government meant to force a war. Like the Cabinet the group agreed that US involvement in a purely continental affair was to no ones benefit. Better the US allow Germany to smash France and Russia, and act as a counter wait to Britain preventing its involvement. Lodge in the meantime would contact his friends in the German Foreign Office to determine how they would feel about the US remaining out of the war.

On July 23rd the Austrian Ultimatum was sent to Serbia to expire on the 25th. and President Roosevelt summoned the German and Austro-Hungarian Ambassadors. At this point President Roosevelt informed the German Ambassador Count von Bernsdorf that the US intended at the moment not declare war on Russia or France, however the US would act as planned as a threat to force Britain’s neutrality. However this was not to be revealed to the British lest they think the US was unprepared for war. Through friends in the Foreign Office and in Berlin, Lodge learned that Kaiser at first acted with shock believing the US had abandoned the alliance. It took several hours for the Chancellor to calm him down and remind him that the US’s influence on Britain’s calculations on whether to declare war was the point of the alliance. The Kaiser quickly telegraphed the President as if it had been the Kaisers plan all along.

After this events moved rapidly British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey telegraphed Secretary Lansing and Confederate Secretary of State Thomas Watt Gregory to ask if they would join in offering mediation in a neutral location such as Sweden, Switzerland or Holland. Grey and Wilson hoped this would help to prevent the US from declaring war and possibly remaining neutral. Both American Secretaries of State agreed. It was at this point that intelligence from with the Kaiser's government reported that the Kaiser was frantically trying to convince the Czar not to intervene. Together Lodge and Roosevelt drafted a personal letter from Roosevelt, encouraging the Kaiser "to face this crises with the same coolness and confidence he has shown in the many previous crises. His majesty must resolve to pursue peace or war. It cannot pursue both. Either way your American allies will support you."

On July 25th with the expiration of the Ultimatum Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia and began bombarding border fortifications. In quick procession Russia declared war on Austrian, Germany on Russia, France began a General Mobilization, and Italy and Belgium declared their neutrality. The US secretly orders its navy to mobilize, the US Army was placed on high alert.

At this point the British begin a last minute effort to prevent the war on the continent from becoming a global war, Britain threatened Germany that it will block the entrance of the High Seas Fleet into the channel. Germany in the meantime demanded the Belgians allow free passage of German Armies through their territory, which must be answered the next day. Lodge who was watching events unfold with President Roosevelt at the War Department told Roosevelt that this meant Britain will declare war. Britain will not allow Germany to seize channel ports. Roosevelt agreeing that war with the Entente was inevitable ordered the Pacific Fleet to set sail for the Sandwich Islands.

On August 3rd After failing to cease their mobilization and for their violation of German air space, Germany declared war on France. Britain ordered a General Mobilization, including the disembarkation of one division of marines headed towards Canada. Having failed to answer Germany, German troops invaded Belgium. Wilson quickly ordered his ambassador to personally deliver Roosevelt a note that proposed a mutual declaration of neutrality. Roosevelt refused to answer the question. On August 4th Britain declared war on Germany. The US responded by ordering a General Mobilization. On August 5th the Confederate States declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary, despite not naming the US in the declaration of war. The CSA immediately ordered a General Mobilization.

On August 6th Roosevelt called an emergency session of Congress. Because of the enormity of the situation, Roosevelt broke tradition and personally addressed the combined assembly directly. Until then Presidents had delivered their messages to Congress and President’s did not address the Congress in person. In his speech Roosevelt told Congress:

“The World is engulfed in war! For the past month the nations of Europe have slouched further and further towards war. We have worked to mediate the struggle and offer peaceful solutions, but Serbia a nation of anarchist have wanted nothing but war. Our brave Austrian allies were forced to fight or suffer under continuous attack by black hearted, bomb throwing anarchists. It is clear that Russia and France would use this as a pretext to crush the German Empire as well. Our brave Germans and Austrian Allies did not ask for our help defeating the decrepit Russians and indolent French. However now Britain the source of so much misery for our great nation for since we were still its servants, has decided to crush our continental allies as well. Beckoning their lap dogs Canada and the Confederacy, the morally coward Wilson was all to willing to beckon his master's call and declare war on Germany.

The choice for us now is simple war or neutrality! Do we allow Britain, France, Russia and the Confederacy to crush our allies when it took us so long to earn their respect? Do we remain neutral or do we throw ourselves into the struggle and save our future. With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not make righteousness, for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong. Now our great enemy to the south asks us to remain neutral, a neutrality as complete as that of Pontius Pilate. Shall we have peace or shall we have righteousness!

Further do we risk our future on a bargain of peace? Do we believe our foes that after Germany they will not turn on us? I cannot put the fate of our republic in the hands of European Empires and slave masters! I ask you today for a declaration of War! A declaration of war against the Entente nations of Britain, France, and Russia fighting our Teutonic allies. I further ask you for a declaration of war against the our great foe, who has sought to humiliate us at every turn! I ask you for the right to repay our great enemy, who has sown a great Debt of vengeance. Let them reap our great revenge! I ask for a declaration of War against the Confederate States of America!

The response was thunderous applause, Congress voted overwhelmingly for war. Only a handful of Socialist and isolationist Republicans Congressmen and Senators dissented. The vote was followed by a cry of joy and excitement not heard in that august body, since the days before the War of Secession. Congressmen and Senators openly wept for joy, Lodge admitted that he could not contain himself in the moment either. Eighty six year old Congressmen James A. McPherson of Ohio declared “now we have our vengeance on the world!” He then led the body in singing "Sword of Remembrance." [5] It is said that Senator Debs also cried but for other reasons.

WAR!​

At Sea
The opening phase of the war at sea saw both success and failure. The US campaign in the Pacific has been called the most successful naval campaign of the war. Thanks to Lodge’s advice ¾ of the US Pacific Fleet was on hand to attack Pearl Harbor within 24 hours of a declaration of war. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a stunning defeat for the Royal Navy. Five US dreadnought Battleships destroyed four out of five of the British dreadnought Battlecruisers, four of the Royal Navies most modern pre-dreadnought Battleships and nearly two dozen cruiser and destroyer escorts. Only one British Dreadnought escaped, the HMS Lion. The Lions harrowing escape across to the Pacific to Japanese held Guam, with the US Navy in pursuit has become a Royal Navy legend. The US Navy’s seizure of the Sandwich Islands was a complete success and destroyed British naval power west of Singapore until 1916.

In the Atlantic the US Navy was not nearly so successful. As per the US Navy war plan within an hour of declaration of war; the Northern Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet sailed from their rally point near Portland, Maine towards Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its mission was to support the landing of a division of Marines to capture Halifax before it became a port for British supplies. Unlike in the Pacific, the Canadian Fleet was not caught off guard. The area around Halifax had been heavily mined. When US mine sweepers moved in to clear a path for US dreadnoughts, they were attacked and sunk by a swarm of Canadian torpedo boats. Many Canadian torpedo boats were sunk by destroyer fire, but the Canadians succeeded in sinking nine out of ten of the U.S. minesweepers. When US dreadnoughts pressed on, two out of the three struck Canadian mines. Though no ships were seriously damaged they were forced to turn back. US marines attempted the landing, but suffered heavy casualties without suppressive fire from the big guns of the US Battleships. The U.S. Marines withdrew and when a division of Royal Marines landed in Halifax in September, all plans for sea born attacks on Halifax were called off. For the remainder of the campaign, The Atlantic Squadron supported 4th Armies push up Canadian occupied Maine and Nova Scotia. Halifax would fall, but not until the fall of 1915 after nearly a yearlong siege.

With the focus on operations against the Canadians and Royal Navy, the US sent limited resources against the CSA surface fleet. The US was able to intercept several Confederate surface raiders, but operations against Confederate bases was impossible due to the CSA’s large submersible fleet and massive amounts of sea mines.


On Land
The success of the war on land depended on whether you spoke to the General Staff or not. According to the General Staff the fall had been a ground breaking success. The General Staff was quick to point out that Army was proceeding according to the modified Plan Blue. First and Second Army had successfully landed in Kentucky capturing Louisville and driving towards Nashville and Frankfort. Fourth Army had crossed into Niagara Peninsula and clearing out all Canadian forces in Quebec south of the St. Lawrence. Meanwhile US forces were driving towards Little Rock, Guaymas, Big Lick, Thunder Bay and Winnipeg. The army was seeing some set backs in Virginia but they were being contained.



To others like Henry Cabot Lodge, General Wood and Secretary Root the opening phase of the war was a disaster. Failure to pass the fitness test requirement for senior officers resulted in three senior officers dying or having to be relieved. General Funston, commander of Fifth Army, died from a heart attack and General Bierce had to be relieved due to a stroke. Chief of Staff Adams was completely unable to deal with the stress brought on by complications to pre-war plan. By mid-August, Roosevelt and Root were bypassing Adams and running the war directly. In Virginia, Fifth Army had been ordered to release a Corp for an attack on the Roanoke Valley, this meant an under-strength Fifth Army was sent reeling back by the Army of Northern Virginia's great wheel around Baltimore. Luckily acting commander General Wood was able to establish a defensive line running from the fortifications around Baltimore in the east and the Susquehanna to the North.

All throughout the Confederates drive from August to November, the people of Philadelphia and Congress waited in terror of the Army of Northern Virginia. There were those still alive that could remember Lee’s occupation of the city during the War of Secession. Many feared that the Confederates drive was doomed to succeed and the U.S. Army again was showing it was incapable of matching their CS counterparts on the battlefield. By mid-October the mood in the city was becoming fever pitched. A group of Senators and Congressmen approached Lodge to help convince Roosevelt to evacuate the capitol. After having to abandon Washington in the Second Mexican War, the War Department developed plans in case Confederates threatened Philadelphia. The plan was that if the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Susquehanna the government would evacuate to Pittsburgh, which was judged a more defensible city. [6]Lodge publicly told the delegation that Philadelphia would never fall, but he would speak to President Roosevelt about the city’s defenses. Privately Lodge warned Roosevelt about the growing fear among members of Congress. Lodge revealed his fear that the U.S. again was about to suffer a decisive defeat. Luckily Roosevelt's faith in US arms was absolute. Roosevelt revealed to Lodge that intelligence had uncovered that the Confederate Artillery was not powerful enough to breach the defenses around Baltimore and that all CS Armies were beginning to feel a shortage in Artillery shells. This would only grow more acute as the war dragged on.

U.S. Army intelligence proved correct. In November with the Confederates failing to break through US lines in Maryland and along the Susquehanna and the destruction of a squadron of British Battleships in the St. Lawrence, Roosevelt held a pro-war rally in Philadelphia. There he invited ministers of different faiths to offer prayers of thanks. He further declared a national day of thanksgiving to observed on the third Thursday of each November.[7] These twin successes went a long way in demonstratively both to the people of the Unites States and the world, that the reforms to the federal government and military build up of the last thirty years had not been in vein. That the U.S. was no longer the international joke it had been since the War of Secession.


1915
After a year of mixed success and failure Roosevelt intended to relieve Charles Adam and appoint the hero of the Susquehanna Leonard Wood as Chief of Staff. The duty came to Lodge to inform General Adams brother, Speaker Henry Adams, of Roosevelt's plan. Recognizing that Charles had been marginalized and was in failing health, Speaker Adams promised not to make and issue of it. In General Woods’ address to the American people after assuming the Chief of Staff position, he outlines his vision for victory. Wood argued that the United States population was almost twice the size of the Confederacy and Canada combined, but to merely rely on weight of numbers would be a senseless waste of life. Wood instead proposed to use the overwhelming might and sophistication of the U.S. industry to further the cause of victory. As a former medical doctor, Wood hated the senseless slaughter modern war had become, so the U.S. would rely on technical innovation to ensure each soldier had greater firepower and protection at his disposal than his enemy.

Lodge with many members of his close and extended fighting in the war, enthusiastically supported Woods plan. Lodge helped ensure that the armed forces had the funding it needed to support research and development for new weapons.[7] Though it would take time for this investment to bare fruit, Lodge routinely volunteered to speak on the wars behalf and recruit more engineers and scientists like Thomas Edison, Nikolai Tesla, Wilbur and Orville Wright to the war's cause.


The War on Land
In the winter of 1915, the Army of Northern Virginia again attempted to cross the Susquehanna and failed. The Confederate ammunition crisis ruled out any further attempts at a crossing. Meanwhile in the spring of 1915, the U.S. Fifth Army was able to cross the Susquehanna, at the same time the Ninth Army was able to break out of the Baltimore pocket. Together by late summer, the two armies were able to drive the Army of Northern Virginia out of Pennsylvania and back into Maryland.

Like in Europe, the Armies in North America settled into a stalemate. Each side explored any option to break the stalemate, including sowing domestic insurrection in their enemy country. One of the Confederates weaknesses to take advantage of was the growing revolutionary spirit growing among its former servile class. Henry Cabot Lodge had long been a champion for civil rights for Black Americans in the north and south. Lodge had long come to the conclusion that unless rescued by the Armies of the United States, the only salvation for the black population of the south was through revolution. As a result, he long supported the Red Revolutionary Council, despite its Marxist leanings.

The War Department had plans to arm the southern Marxists since the Mahan administration, but under Aldrich these plans were suspended. Lodge now chairman of the Senate intelligence committee was instrumental in convincing the President to authorize arming the Reds in the CSA. Beginning in January, US intelligence officials began smuggling weapons into the south. Major conduits for smuggling arms were down the many tributaries of the Ohio and Mississippi, the porous border in the Appalachian Mountains and through fast corvettes and civilian ships along the Atlantic and Caribbean. Meanwhile, Black laborers pressed into army service and black factory workers began campaigns of sabotage through out the south. The true revolt began in early September. Thanks to the work of the Red Council and US intelligence, over a hundred thousand troops that could have been used along the front were shifted to protect vital strategic areas and crush the rebellion.

Unfortunately for the US, the Confederacy was up to similar tricks. Weeks after the Red Rebellion, Mormon extremists severed the transcontinental railroad running through their state. The Utah legislature then enacted an ordinance of secession. Utah declared its ties to the Union severed and the formation of the Nation of Deseret. The Confederate States quickly recognized the new nation and the U.S. General Staff was forced to withdraw troops that could have been used to exploit the chaos in the Confederate States. With neither side was able to exploit each others weakness because of internal instability at home, the war on land continued to stalemate.

The War at Sea
Unlike on land, the US Navy was more successful at sea. After the fall of the Sandwich Islands, the US Pacific fleet spent the remainder of 1914 and 1915 securing the rest of the island chain, supporting landings on Wake Island and Midway. The Pacific Fleet was also busy supporting the German Far East Squadron, repurposed as commerce raiders.

In the Atlantic, the US Squadron was more successful than the year before. By spring of 1915, the US Navy had succeeded in closing of the mouth of the St. Lawrence to British and Canadian shipping. After a year of siege, Halifax fell and the North Atlantic Squadron was then able to support US Marine landings on the British Dominion of Newfoundland.

Desperate after the loss of more dreadnoughts at the Battle of Dogger Bank, the British asked their Confederate allies to contribute more to the naval war effort. Without a sizable surface fleet the Confederate Navy focused primarily on submersible and mines to deter the US Fleet attacks on their harbors and conducting a guerre de course. To draw US forces away from the beleaguered Canadians and bring the fight home to the enemy befitting southern élan. In February of 1915 the Confederate Naval High Command began ordering Battlecruiser raids against cities along the Delaware and New Jersey shores.

For three months, Confederate Battlecruisers attacked and evaded the US Navy as they raided the New Jersey coastal towns. On their third sortie against the north, the CS Battlecruiser squadron was intercepted by four US Battleships. At what has been called the Battle of the New Jersey Bight, the US Fleet won a stinging victory against the CS including the destruction of two dreadnought Battlecruisers and heavily damaging another. This Battle was further evidence that the US decision not to build Battlecruisers was the correct one.

In a daring raid, commanded by the notorious Captain Roger Kimball, the CSS Bonefish snuck north up the Chesapeake beyond US nets and sunk a US coastal defense battleship. As a result of these early defeats the US began to ramp up the production of destroyer escorts. The US Fleet of the first Mahan administration had been almost entirely cruisers and battleships. Successes abroad with torpedo boats led the US to introduce anti-destroyer escorts. The success of the 1914-1915 CS submersible campaign led to the ramp up of production destroyer by the end of the war 230 Wilkes and Clemson class destroyers were completed. This year also the completion of the first of the four for four class. Completing the Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico and West Virginia. The Idaho and New Mexico were completed in San Francisco yards and assigned to reinforce the Pacific Fleet anchored in the Sandwich Islands.


Diplomatic Developments Abroad
1915 also saw the expansion of the war into the Middle East when the Ottomans joined the war and began operations against the Suez Canal and in the Caucuses. Just as the US was supporting a revolt in the South, so to was it supporting uprising among Entente colonial subjects. Thanks to Lodge the Senate passed a resolution supporting the Maritz revolt of disaffected Boers in South Africa. The Senate then passed a resolution of solidarity with Indian Nationalists. The Senate also passed a resolution of friendship with Bulgaria, which entered the War on the side of the Quadruple Alliance.

Lodge believed that the best way to win the support of neutrals was through trade. To this end Lodge sponsored bills to ensure good relations with those that had not yet joined the war in South America, Europe and Asia. Most important were Brazil, the Netherlands and Italy. Thanks to Lodge’s influence, the Senate passed a bill granting all four countries most favored nation status when it came to trading. Lodge supported using the Italians Merchant Marine to deliver food and other supplies to its allies in Europe. For a few months before the British began to search Italian vessels in the Mediterranean and Confederates began sinking any ship in US waters, thousands of tons of food and material were delivered between North America and Europe.

In the Pacific, which was not nearly as armed as the Atlantic, U.S. merchantmen still plied the seas. US ships were able to trade with South American powers like Chile, Ecuador and Peru. In the Eastern Pacific the U.S. was often able to elude Japanese and Australian vessel and sell goods to the Dutch East Indies who were cut off from the Netherlands by the blockade.

In Asia Japan used the war excuse to consolidate its control over China. In January Japan now controlled by Expansionist Nationalist government delivered it’s twenty-one demands on China. These demanded greater control over the Chinese economy and the recognition of special rights in Manchuria and Mongolia. In an effort to court the Chinese the US Senate passed a resolution supporting China’s resistance to these demands. The U.S. also offered assistance training and organizing the Chinese Army and Navy after the war was over. These olive branches however were in vein. After months of steadily gaining power the military leader of China of Juan declared himself Emperor and ended the Republic. Juan position was extremely precarious. To increase his power Juan sought to gain the military and financial support of Japanese nationalists. In Autumn of summer of Emperor Juan declared war on the Quadruple Alliance. Juan hoped that he maybe able to recover the German Concession of Tsingtao. Though he declared war against the Quadruple Alliance, he made no attempt to seize U.S. property in the country, due to its popularity with the Chinese people.


Domestic Developments
While the US was stalemated at war, great changes were occurring on the home front. At the outbreak of the war the U.S. was lucky enough to have relatively low unemployment. The immediate mobilization of nearly a million young men at the outbreak of the war caused a brief retraction of the economy. It quickly became clear that even more economic regimentation was required. The government quickly created a host of new agencies to manage the economy like: the war industries board, the National Labor Board, Strategic Materials Board and War Finance Board. Each of these was to regulate an important aspect of the economic war effort. These institutions oversaw a dramatic increase in war material production, required under Chief of Staff Woods new Firepower focused strategy. The first issue was the growing labor shortage. Important industries with specialized labor like Steel production were given priority and their employees were to be given special status in the conscription classes. Next was the issue of thousands of men leaving the labor force to join the Army. The National Labors Board and private industry was quick to recruit millions of women to join the war effort. This was the cause of great social change in the nation and helped to fuel the post war women's suffrage movement of the 1920's.

With most industries now harnessed to the war effort, nearly all fell under the federal government’s wage price control. Roosevelt was quick to use his expanded wartime powers to enact the labor reforms he long supported. His first item on the agenda was and executive order for an eight hour work day and a 5 day work week, but problems with labor shortages prevented this. The problems of labor shortage became so acute he actually had to remove his prewar eight hour work day executive order. To compensate Roosevelt forced all war related industries to pay a minimum wage of $5 a day for men, with higher wages for jobs needing specialized skills.

To finance the war Roosevelt turned to former President Aldrich. Aldrich's plan was to use a combination of corporate taxes, income taxes, bank loans and individual bonds to finance the war. One of his more innovative ideas, the individual "Remembrance" or after 1916 the Victory Loan had a dramatic effect on the U.S. economy. This program helped to further transform the economy. Before the war only a small clique of 20,000 financiers were the main purchasers of government bonds. Through Aldrich’s Victory Loan program more than 23 million Americans helped pay for the war through small loans. Many of these were immigrants who felt it necessary to buy loans to show their patriotism. It was important to Roosevelt that no one individual should profit from the war. As a result Roosevelt was able to pass another major increase in corporate taxes to finance the war. These were the largest in US history and aimed primarily at war related industries.

In one of the darker aspects of the war was the further curtailment of civil liberties, beyond the regimentation of the Remembrance era. After the Rebellion in Utah thousands of Mormons were detained for questioning and on suspicion of treason. Even Utah Senators Reed Smoot and George Sutherland both Democrats, were briefly detained. That is until it was determined that neither were involved in the plot. Both were considered soft on the issue of Mormon Nationalism and Federal collaborators by Mormon extremists. The two would continue to serve for the time being, at the tightly following the Democratic Party line. Thousands of other Mormons living outside Utah would not be so lucky.

The biggest domestic disturbance of 1915 outside of Utah that year was the Remembrance Day Riots. These riots, which broke out during the New York Remembrance Day parade resulted in dozens of deaths and hundreds of people injured. It is still not clear whether Mormon sympathizers or Socialist activists instigated it, but it quickly spread into Socialist neighborhoods throughout New York City. Remembrance Day riots popped up in other cities with heavy Socialist presence as well like Cleveland, Milwaukie, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver and Portland, OR. As a result tens of thousands of Soldiers Circle men were deputized in the wake of the riots. Soldiers Circle men from then on took it upon themselves to harass socialists, immigrants and any others they thought were not sufficiently patriotic.

The biggest effect of the riots was that it enabled Congress to pass the Sedition and Espionage Acts. These laws (or acts) forbade giving comfort to the nations enemies and disrupting the war effort. Originally the Bill called for the arrest of any one who criticized the war or through publication undermined the war effort. Despite the horror of the war Lodge never forgot the importance of free speech and how it set us apart from the tyrannies of Europe. Lodge vowed to filibuster the bill as it was. Instead the bill was changed to forbidding the obstruction of the war effort.

Still As a result of the legislation the C.I.D. came down hard on Socialist anti-war agitators and Mormon supports. More than 5,000 people would be prosecuted for interfering with the war effort, either by helping others avoid the draft or interfering with war production namely by organizing strikes. One of its most famous victims was former Republican Presidential candidate Williams Jennings Bryan. He was arrested, for obstructing the draft after a speech he made in 1915. Bryan's acquittal would prevent any further prosecution for speech alone. Still many who helped others elude the draft or organize strikes in vital war industries would be imprisoned during the war.

Despite a lacking a no "criticizing the war effort" clause in the Sedition Act, nearly all newspapers voluntarily complied with directives by the new War Information Board. Newspaper editors routinely worked with War Department officials to put recent battles in the best light, not publish military secrets and "fight defeatism." The leading figure in the support for the War Information Board was media mogul William Randolph Hearst. Hearst controlled a media empire, which spanned the nation. Hearst felt his contribution to the war would be to enforce the War Information Board and its attempt to secure victory. Hearst routinely blackballed and intimidated reporters when the government could not. For his trouble he was awarded an honorary rank of Colonel in the New York Army Reserve, which he routinely insisted his friends, employees and colleagues call him. [8]

Another major factor of life during wartime was the U.S. Rationing system. Before the war the government generally only rationed strategically vital materials like coal, iron, copper, rubber, petroleum products, nitrates and cotton. Outside of the hated coal board, few Americans directly dealt with the rationing system. However with the war on the range of rationed goods expanded exponentially every American directly felt the nuisance of rationing. Nearly everything was rationed from paper to meat. Most intrusive of all was the meat rationing. In a nation where food had generally been plentiful, severe restrictions on meat quickly created a black market. When alcohol and tobacco were rationed, black market activity exploded. The CID and local law enforcement worked hard to crack down on such incidents, but as the war dragged on there was a dramatic rise in theft and violent crimes across the nation.

Lodge as a Senior Senator
Having been a Senator for nearly twenty years, Lodge had his choice of committee positions. Through out the war Lodge used his position on the Armed Forces Committee and Chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee to back Roosevelt’s handling of the war. During the dark months where it looked like the Army of Northern Virginia could not be stopped, there were those who wanted to resurrect the dreaded Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Lodge helped squash this saving both President Roosevelt, former Chief of Staff Charles Adams and by extension Speaker Adams from embarrassment.

In a personal triumph as a veteran of the Battle of Eddington, Lodge was on hand for a ceremony officially re-incorporating the Maine territory lost in the Second Mexican War. In a moving speech Lodge welcomed the return of his lost New England brethren. New England produced a disproportionate number of Officers and Non- Commissioned Officers for the Army and Navy. Thanks to more than three decades of anti-confederate propaganda and anger over the loss of parts of Maine had made New England a center of Remembrance Ideology. Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge had no small part in this, through the eighties and nineties they gave speeches up and down the region. They also helped sponsored an exceptionally high involvement in the region of the boy scouts, who were required to read Roosevelt and Lodge’s American Hero Stories for Boys. Where before the Second Mexican War, enlistment in the military was seen as a dead end, it became a highly revered occupation during the build up. Lodge was exceptionally proud of the degree his fellow Brahmans joined the war effort.


1916
Stalemate and Slaughter
By 1916 both the US and CS had undergone a tremendous industrial expansion which led to greater firepower on each side and greater slaughter. Because of internal instability each side could not take advantage of the others misfortune. By Spring the worst of the red rebellions were crushed and the US had passified Utah. With this internal threats over, US and CS Armies attacked one another with ever greater firepower and men. In the west US forces drove CS Armies out of Ketucky and into Tennessee but stalled in the heights north of Nashville. Meanwhile in the East US forces slowly drove Confederate forces back into Virginia and defenses around Washington DC.

1916 was further notable for the introduction of new military inovations such as the flamethrower, the Aerial Bomber, light machine guns and most importantly the Barrel. Unfortunately for the US, tactics had not yet caught up with innovation and these weapons failed to produced the promised breakthrough. The one notable success was the CS attack during the Thirteenth Battle of Roanoke, where a CS forces using new innovative combined artiller-barrel and infantry tactics led the US withdraw east of the Roanoke river. This attack was a presage of the coming breakthrough in 1917, but that was not yet recognizable for the war weary nations of North America.

At Sea
In the Pacific the year began as another quiet one, the US Pacific Fleet continued to patrol the waters around the Sandwich Islands. One notable incident was the attack on the USS Dakota by a Japanese submersible while on patrol. Luckily for the US, the Dakota survived the incident and the Japenese submersible was sunk. Meanwhile US ships closer to home succeeded in clearing US submersibles and commerce raiders from the Eastern Pacific. The US was able to pay the Japanese and British back, operating more than a dozen long range commerce raiders in the Western Pacific.

The relative quiet of the Pacific was shattered when a combined fleet of Japanese and Royal Navy dreadnoughts were spotted south east of the island chain. When a US Squadron of six battleships intercepted them on July 7th, the resulting engagement was dubbed the Battle of the Three Navies. The battle was famous for the deathride of the USS Dakota whose jammed rudder resulted in two circuits through the US and into the combined British Japanese Fleet. Despite the claims of a crushing victory the battle was largely a draw. Two US Battleships were heavily damaged and the famous HMS Lion was sunk along with heavy damage to two Japanese dreadnoughts, one of which sunk on the return trip to Guam. With the defeat of the combined British Japanese Fleet and the completion of four new Dreadnoughts in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy General Staff ordered a squadron of the two most heavily damaged Battleships the USS Dakota and USS New York to reinforce the Chilean Fleet operating against the Argentine and British Fleets in the South Atlantic.

Meanwhile in the Atlantic the US Fleet began attacks to close off the British base at Bermuda, with an ultimate goal to cut off links between the Confederacy and it’s European allies. Bermuda was an important rallying point for escort vessels and Confederate submersibles. Through a combination of Marine raids, submersible attacks, mine laying and intentional sinking of ships in Bermuda Harbors, the US effectively neutralized Bermuda by summer 1916. From then on the US South Atlantic Squadron ecorted by its growing fleet of Destroyers began operating against British, French and Confederate shipping in the south Atlantic. This year of success for the US Navy saw one dark spot when the infamous CSS Bonefish was able to penetrate New York Harbor defenses and sank one US dreadnought the USS Massachusetts and heavily damage another. The USS Massachusetts would be raised but remain out of service until the end of the war.

Developments Abroad and US Policy
Despite the seemingly endless slaughter, to neutral nations the Quadruple Alliance was quickly looking like the more successful combatants. In Europe, the German Army was able to push the Russians out Poland and capture the key French fortress of Verdun. The capture of Kentucky, Maryland and the defeat of the British Japanese Fleet in the Pacific meant that the Entente would be unable to enlist smaller neutral nations. The continuing defeats abroad and rationing throughout the empire led to Britain’s own year of revolution. On easter 1916, Irish Nationalists took over the Irish Parliament building. This surprise uprising within the British Isles was brutally put down and resulted in the death of many Irish Nationalist leaders. The US was quick to protest such brutal tactics and especially the execution of American citizens who participated in the uprising including Eamon De Valera. The brutal British tactics, helped spark a nation wide rebellion later that year. In India similar protests broke out over demands for home rule. While these never elevated to armed insurrection like Ireland, they did result in several strikes and work stoppages. South Africa also saw continued resentment as the British put tight regulation on the nations gold fields, which badly hurt the local economy. Many Afrikaner units refused to fight for the British against Germans and Americans.

With the US now pushing into the Southern Atlantic trade with the Empire of Brazil was resumed. Unlike the British the US still was willing to buy and lend loans to neutral nations. This went a long way to garnering Brazilian support, who would need to re-arm if they wish to join the War.

One of the most dramatic episodes away from the main theaters of battle was the failed Entente expedition against Liberia.. Throughout the war, South America and Argentina in particular had become an import source of food for Britain. The supply routes between Europe and South America routinely traveled close to the Western Africa, Liberia was idealy placed to support German u-boats and US commerce raiders. Since the out break of the war, Monrovia and smaller ports had offered supplies and repairs to Geman and US convoy raiders British and French government protested this support, but fears of widening the war and further angering neutral nations led them to take little action.This changed however after 1916 when German u-boats attacks on British shipping began to have a serious impact on British food supplies. After a particularly bad month the British asked their French allies to put an end to Liberian support. With the Royal Navy already over exteneded containing the German Fleet in the North Seas and protecting its many convoys asked the French Navy to force Monrovia to submit. The French planned a two pronged attack, with a squadron of French Battleships blocking the port, a Regiment of French Naval Infantry landing on the coast and a Brigade of French colonial troops invading the country from Sierra Leone.

The French expected a quick punative expedition against untrained local forces. Instead they encountered a well disciplined and eqiupped forces thanks to the training provided by the US Marines commanded by Colonel Smedley Butler. From the moment French troops entered Liberian territory it was harrased and ambushed by Liberian soldiers. Meanwhile the Navy expedition was repeatedly attacked by German u-boats. When the French pre-dreadnought Battleship Vergniaud was torpedoed by a German u-boat and forced to be towed back to port the task force was reduced to half a dozen cruisers and destroyers. This force proved inadequated to overcome the heavy belts of mines and improved harbor defenses. The French attempted to land their naval infantry but that came under heavy fire from US Marines and Liberian soldiers and were forced to withdraw. For Colonel Butlers actions on the beaches around Monrovia and the coordinating the defense against French forces invading from Sierra Leone, he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. [9]Lodge lobbied heavily in favor of Colonel Butler’s nomination.

That year the US officially recognized the Irish Free State and Poland under Holzenern suzernaity. The US itself anounced the formation of the Republic of Quebec after the fall of the provincial capitol that year. Lodge and Roosevelt also decided that they needed to lay the foundation for their vision of a post war peace. In a series of articles both Lodge and Roosevelt called for the need to “drive the British Empire from the Western Hemisphere.” This called for annexation of Canadian and Newfoundland teritory and its island posessions in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Because both were seeking election that year, neither could afford to make this a campaign issue. Both cleverly recruited proxies and similarly inclined foreign policy experts to support their vision for a new American Empire.


Developments At Home
As the war entered its third year the drive to centralize the economy on grew in pace. 1916 was the year that saw the introduction of day and week long bombardements. This required millions of shells and tens of throusands of new artillery pieces. Production in civillian goods were given secondary importance. As a result the price of goods went up. [10] The Roosevelt administration tried to control prices but this led to shortages and black markets. Roosevelt responded by an increased minimum wage but factory owners responded by hiring more women who were not subject to the minimum wage. When the war started a five dollar a day wage was considered utopian but now it would just make ends meet. Roosevelt pushed Congress to pass new minimum wage laws for women but he was flatly rejected.

Early in the war Roosevelt had seen his powers over the economy grow. With progressive Democratic allies in Congress, Roosevelt was able to enact a wide range of domestic reforms. However by 1916 many of his young allies had resigned their seats to emulate their hero and fight the nations enemies directly. With their resignations, State Governors often nominated more conservative and party loyal democrats. As a result Roosevelts reform coalition in Congress was severly weakened. The one success for progressives was the successful addition of a rider to the War Budget inserted by Upton Sinclair, which required greater safety conditions in war related industries. Few Congressman could object to the provision after the T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion in Sayreville, New Jersey. This explosion, only fifteen miles from down town Manhattan, all but obliterated a small town.

Meanwhile the good shortages and war weariness, led to the first wave of strikes that would cripple the nation in the post war period. In the early part of the war a combination of patriotic spirit and harsh crackdowns by Pinkertons and the C.I.D. prevented the outbreak of labor strikes. As the war came close to entering its third year the patriotic spirit began to slip. Three major strikes rocked the country; the Mesabi Range miners' strike in Minnesota, The Perth Amboy nitrates work Strike in New Jersey, the Chicago Machinist Strike General Strike, Bayonne refinery and stevedore strikes. These were brutally suppressed by the C.I.D, in Minnesota the Army was even called in to break of miner camps. The one lone success was the Bayonne refinery and stevedore strikes. Led by the charismatic George Martin nearly the entire town came out in support of the strike.

The Presidential Election
1916 was historic not just for the carnage raging on the battlefield but also because it was the first time in United States history that a Presidential election would be conducted during wartime. It was unthinkable that Theodore Roosevelt who had led the country through two years of war would not seek reelection. His aggressive handling of the war thus far precluded any attempts to unseat his nomination by more militant Democrats. There were some grumblings by the more conservative wing of the party that were unhappy with his more progressive policies. The Old Guard however could not offer a candidate that could match Roosevelt’s popularity or experience.

The Democratic convention was held that year in Chicago in late June. Chicago was chosen because it was far from the frontlines and was not a regular Democratic stronghold. When the convention began some delegates put forward some token nominations, but Roosevelt easily won on the first ballot. Roosevelt chose Walter McKenna again as his running mate, to ensure the loyalty of party bosses. The Democrats primary platform plank was Victory at all costs, however Roosevelt insisted that elements of his square deal policy be included. Roosevelt mainly wanted stricter regulations of predatory trusts, pension for returning veterans, a pledge to rebuild the nations foreign trade, a pledge to provide federal assistance for property damaged by the war, an eight hour work day after the war, post war loosening of rationing, a living wage and better access to health care.

The Socialist convention that year was held in Scranton, Pa. [11] Despite the growing dissatisfaction with the war, most Socialists were sure there was no chance for victory. Most ambitious younger candidates like Upton Sinclair and Hiram Johnson chose to sit out the election. In a similarly routine convention the Socialist easily nominated the 1912 candidate Eugene V. Debs with Congressman Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania. The Socialists nominated Debs under a platform of seeking a peaceful conclusion to the war at a status quo ante bellum and helping conclude a peaceful solution for Europe. The platform also called for maintaining the wartime tax rate and control of the economy. They also called for creating an eight-hour work day, five day work week, women suffrage and stronger restrictions on immigration.

The Republican convention that year was held with little to no fanfare in St. Paul, Minnesota. Republicans nominated Theodore Burton and Jack Hounsome as his running mate. The two ran on a platform of continued prosecution of the war, but without regard to the fortune of the U.S.’s European allies. They also called for farm relief for those affected by the war, regulation of the railroads, greater immigration control, temperance and lower tariffs.

Debs quickly turned the national election into a referendum on the war, hoping to capitalize on the nation’s weariness. Despite running the biggest war in world history war, Roosevelt found time to campaign furiously. Roosevelt and his campaign came up with a simple message; the suffering of the war has been terrible but to give up now would be worse. Posters were everywhere with the message Any vote not for Roosevelt was a vote for Debs and Surrender." Roosevelt’s election committee conjured up images of the past two wars, reminding the people of the panics and dark times after the last two wars were lost. This message resounded with the American people and especially among soldiers. Socialists attacked the President on the cost of the war, both in life and treasure. By now the war had claimed more than three-quarters of a million dead with two million wounded and another half million in enemy P.O.W. camps By the progress so far The U.S. Army would not be in Richmond until 1920 and suffer another million casualties and millions more wounded. Further there was the financial cost of the war. The U.S. had spent Billions on the war and could expect to spend billions more. Billions, Debs argued that could be spent on legislation to benefit the American worker. By the best estimates the U.S. would be paying the widows of this war for the rest of the century.

Roosevelt struck back promising more help for the average American. As for how he will pay for helping the American people and pay for defending the nation, in an off the cuff remark he would later regret. Roosevelt told a crowd at a rally in the damaged town of Asbury Park New Jersey, that “after we are done clubbing our enemies in the head, we will go through their pockets.” Socialist and Republican posters quickly began popping up of Roosevelt as a robber carrying “his big stick.” While many military leaders feared a Debs victory, few in the country could imagine the Confederates agreeing to a treaty to return to the pre-war conditions. The Confederacy had just replaced Wilson with the more belligerent Gabrielle Semmes, who demanded that any peace would require no reparations and the return of Seqoyah and Kentucky. Britain was refusing any peace that did not recognize its naval supremacy in the Western Atlantic, a return of the Sandwich Islands, a disarmed Canadian border and reparations for damages. [12]

Republicans also attacked Roosevelt for not prosecuting the war vigorously enough. They claimed they could do better and called for making a peace that befit the U.S. and it’s interest. They further demanded a unilateral withdrawal from the Quadruple Alliance for having dragged the U.S. into the war. Unfortunately for the Republicans their choice of Theodore Burton who lacked any military background and was a generally quiet soft-spoken man undercut their strategy. Few could imagine anyone but Theodore Roosevelt prosecuting the war more aggressively or with more enthusiasm. Roosevelt’s allies came out in force. These included Lodge and Beveridge who was still popular with Midwestern Democrats. In a famous speech Lodge reminded Republicans in Nebraska “Leadership like the President’s is worth another Corp of infantry and a squadron of Battleships.”

On Election Day, the electorate overwhelmingly showed up to support the war. Roosevelt won every state but five, including the newly re-admitted state of Kentucky. The few exceptions were Indiana, Wyoming, Colorado and New York. He easily won the first popular majority in sixteen years. Roosevelt would wind up winning 56% percent of the popular vote, a larger popular vote victory than President Hancock in 1884. It would go down as the largest popular vote victory, since President Monroe in 1820. In New England alone Roosevelt polled more than 65%. Unfortunately for Debs the vast majority of Americans over forty did not trust the Socialist Party, remembering them as bomb throwing anarchists. The Socialist Party was generally popular with younger Americans, but much of the nations youth was in the Army. Fearing that their sacrifice would be in vein Soldiers on avaerage voted for Roosevelt at a ratio of 2:1.

Debs polled better than he had in 1912 pulling 34% of the popular vote. Despite this set back Socialists did manage to capture the most populous state in the Union and Roosevelt’s home state New York. This was largely due to the administrations reaction to the Remembrance Day Riots. Roosevelt’s declaration of martial law in the wake of the riots, in conjunction with the actions of the police and the overbearing nature of the Soldier Circle pushed nearly the entire working population of New York City to vote Socialist. New York had been leaning towards the Socialists since 1900, but Great Lake Cities, areas outside the city and those beholden to the Tamany Machine tended to vote Democrat. The Riots finally tilted the state into Socialist camp, despite a strong Democrat turn out in the Great Lakes Cities. This was the first time that the Socialists won any state east of the Appalachians. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Roosevelt victory did not translate into support for congressional elections. Roosevelt in fact out polled almost all Democratic candidates.


Lodge’s Election/ Congressional Election
While Roosevelt sailed easily to victory, the same could not be said of Congress. In 1914 Democrats won a resounding majority in the mid term election. Roosevelt and his progressive allies’ agenda of social improvement and militarization was incredibly popular with the public. The conservative shift since the resignation of many of his allies to fight in the army had soured the public mood. Conservative intransegance with Roosevelt’s reforms left many in the country angry with Congress. It was in this situation that Senator Henry Cabot Lodge faced his first popular election for the Senate. Luckliy Lodge did not treat this election like so many of his fellow Democrats as a fait acompli. Instead Lodge campaigned hard. Facing no primary challenger Lodge focused all his attention on the general election. Lodge spent the entire summer and fall shuttling back and forth betwen Philadelphia and Massachusetts. Lodge mirrored Roosevelts campaign reminding the people of the commonwealth that only victory could save the nation. Roosevelt took time out of his busy schedule to remind Lodge’s constitutents how important Lodge had been to the Remembrance cause and Roosevelt’s reforms. Lodge easily defeated his Socialist opponent William M. McDonald.

The rest of Congress was not nearly so successful. Though the Democrats held their hefty majorities in both houses , the Socialists managed to gain three seats in the Senate. Socialists picked more than a dozen seats in the House. The Socialists went from nine senators to twelve, a dramatic growth for the party, having only won their first seats only eight years previously. [13]

Conclusion
Both Lodge and Roosevelt had much to celebrate. Their forty year partnership had resulted in Roosevelt’s Presidency and Lodges elevation to the senior leadership of the Senate and now the Chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Commitee. They had helped overseen the nations re-armament and its growth to a first rank power. When the ultimatet test came the two old friends were at the helm. The nation was not just holding its own but turning the tide of victory. The two were now free to plan for the future, to them it was obvious Britain’s possesions in the Western Hemisphere would have to be appropriated. The larger question was what to do with the CSA? Could the US successfully occupy the CSA? Lodge and Roosevelt were unsure at the moment, but both new the CSA must be decisively and unequivocally defeated on the battlefield.

Both men had risked much in the struggle, even their children. Roosevelt had four sons in the war effort and Lodge had one. Unfortunately for the Lodges only weeks after Lodge’s re-election, his only surving son John Ellerton Lodge was badly hurt while serving on the Qubec Front. Major John Ellerton Lodge had seved with Fourth Army through its drive up Maine and into Nova Scotia, he had earned an a Bronze Star during the seige of Halifax. Major Lodge was serving as a Brigade Staff Officer, when visitng the front lines outside Montreal he was wouned by incoming artillery. Though he would survive, Major Lodge would lose the use of his left arm and lose mobility in his left leg. Despite all this Lodge would never lose faith in the cause of the war or the ultimate victory of the United States.


[1] Later a North Atlantic Squadron Commander in the Great War, He replaced Admiral Henry T. Mayo after his disaster pus attack on Halifax.
[2] Roosevelt’s father Theodore Roosevelt senior had long fought for civil service reform. Unlike his son he clung to the dying Republican party. He had been in the running for to be the New York Port Custom Inspector, as a neutral party but Tammany hall democrats and Spoilsman republicans conspired against him. Roosevelt senior died shortly after that.
[3] In fact at the outbreak of war two field commanders Frederic Funston and Ambrose Bierce suffered heart attacks and strokes requiring their removal. Adams became completely overwhelmed by the CS Army Attack through Maryland and Pennsylvania.
[4] Ludendorff’s proposal would not be enacted in Germany out of fear that it would lead to an over-democratization of the German Army. Some older US commanders felt the same way but were not enough to overcome opposition.
[5] A song set to john brown’s body written and made popular by Julia Ward Howe and made popular after the Second Mexican War.
[6] The General Staff judged Pittsburgh to be an ideal from a defensive point, as the Appalachian mountains would preclude rapid movement or resupply from the south or east. The river network would impede any attack for the north or west.
[7] Long a regional holiday in New England and among the parts of the nation settled by New Englanders, henceforth thanksgiving would be a national holiday.
[8] His rise to power and his actions during the war became the basis of Orson Welles Oscar winning film The Colonel.
[9] Colonel Butler would go on to be one of only two soldiers to earn a medals of honor oak leaf cluster in the war. One for his heroic actions on the beaches during the Battle of Monrovia and one for rescuing Liberian and U.S. prisoners in Cote D’Voir.
[10] The Confederacy was not the only nation to see inflation in this period, nearly all nations saw dramatic price in goods with a decrease of purchasing power.
[11] New York was chosen as the location years earlier but the party did not wish to draw attention to the events of 1915 and hastily relocated to Scranton.
[12] The failure of British to gather enough troops to help relieve the French at Verdun and the defeats of the Royal Navy at Jutland and the Battle of the Three Navies led to the collapse of the Asquith government. His replacement Prime Minister David Lloyd George was quick to undercut the conservatives by issuing harsh peace demands.
[13] Socialist Senators: Eugene V. Debs (IN), Robert Lafollete (WI), Henrik Shipstead (MN), Benjamin Griffith (CO), J.C. Griffith (CO), Raymond Robins (IL), G. A. Gneiser (WV), Bruce Rogers (WA), Charles Emil Ruthenberg (DA), Ashley G. Miller (NV), Walter Thomas Mills (CA).

 

[Rifleman134]

Bravo bravo, i am waiting with baited breath for more

 

[08hurley]

Is it cool if I write a post on Earl Browder, in OTL the General Secretary of the U.S. Communist Party,in Tl-191, I imagine him a rising star in the Socialist Party, who however was never able to capture the nomination for the presidency perhaps due to his criticism of the party's complicit consent to involvement in the Great War.

 

[President Mahan]

Is it cool if I write a post on Earl Browder, in OTL the General Secretary of the U.S. Communist Party,in Tl-191, I imagine him a rising star in the Socialist Party, who however was never able to capture the nomination for the presidency perhaps due to his criticism of the party's complicit consent to involvement in the Great War.

Yeah of course the more posters the better. A Browder article and info on the more radical element of the Socialist Party would be really interesting. They mention the election of Red Congressmen (what the series calls communists) in the Confederacy during the post war chaos, which I wished Turtledove would have went into. There are some good articles on the Socialists Party here, if you want help weaving it in to the thread timeline:

http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/doku.php/tl-191/filling_the_gaps

I suggest checking out the Debs, Upton Sinclair and Al Smith articles.

I've been rereading the Walk in Hell for this article and starting the American Empire Blood and Iron for the next. It seems to me that Socialist struggle to be elected on the east coast in the remembrance era. Thats why i don't have them electing a Senator from any east coast state except West Virginia, which has alot of miners.

In regatrds to the 1916 election. Walk in Hell has one socialist character (Herman Bruck) say we should take New York on election night. I interpretted that as Teddy lost his home state, which i find a little shocking. My only reasoning was that the remembrance day riots created alot of sympathy. what do you guys think. should i re-edit to remove NY?

Anyone with a good grasp of economic history have any ideas for the post- Great War economy in the US? How big do people the US economy was before the War and how big was it after the war? I kind of this ark where the War is what allows the US to finally surge past the British as the dominant Financial Power. We even end up lending substantial loans to the Germans and Austria-Hungary. This could be the source of some of the interwar US-German tension.

Also when are we going to get that Second Great War articel vesica

 

[robcraufurd]

Confederate weaponry of the Second Mexican War

Hampered by a lack of industry compared to their northern neighbours, the Confederate approach to armament procurement was reactive rather than proactive. Their first move away from the muzzle-loading rifle came in 1869, when they purchased five thousand Snider-Enfield breech-loaders from the London Armoury Company for issue to the brigades of the Confederate regular army stationed in Virginia. The increased capacity of these guns was the catalyst for the development of new infantry tactics, drawing from Emory Upton’s recently-published work as well as the Prussian schwarm. In June 1873, following the Union adoption of the ‘trapdoor’ Springfield Model 1873 breech-loader, the Confederate War Department solicited bids to restock the South’s armouries with modern weapons.

This was the moment that Joseph Reid Anderson, manager of the Tredegar works, had been carefully preparing for since the Civil War. During the early years of the conflict, many engineering firms in the North had taken large contracts from the War Department for Springfield rifles: though many never delivered a single gun before the war was over, they had laid out significant sums in tooling up for production and the Panic of 1863 left these firms desperate for cash to stay afloat. Anderson took full advantage of their plight by buying up their machinery through a network of Dutch and Bavarian shell companies at fire-sale prices, shipping it to Halifax as scrap metal and then re-importing it into the Confederacy as machine parts in order to avoid the scrutiny of Union customs officers.

Before the war, Anderson had hoped that secession would allow him to undercut Northern firms for Southern contracts with the judicious employment of slave workers. Peace saw his hopes come true, and the bumper profits which Tredegar made were ploughed back into the works, developing the capacity to manufacture, mill and force steel in-house. Anderson’s ambition to cap this expansion by securing a contract for Martini-Henry rifles with the Ottoman government had fallen short, but he now offered the Confederate government the same deal of 200,000 rifles at $15 per rifle and 25,000 carbines for $13 each. After the acceptance of the bid, Tredegar delivered two thousand rifles per month throughout the remainder of the decade like clockwork. By the time the enlarged production run of 220,000 rifles was completed in 1883, Tredegar had secured its place as the South’s domestic rifle manufactory; a place it would continue to hold through the Confederacy’s remaining life as an independent state.

Though the Tredegar was a copy of the Martini-Henry, in both rifle and carbine form, it lacked much of the finesse of its European counterpart. The weapons were characterised by roughly finished stocks, crudely-formed trigger guards and an exceptionally long extraction lever intended to force out expended cartridges that stuck in the gun due to imperfect tolerances or inadequate quality control measures. However, the rifles themselves remained accurate and hard-hitting, with their weakest functional aspect being their bayonets. Understanding the Confederate political system, Tredegar deliberately suggested that each state should be permitted to contract for their own bayonets: by cannily leaving enough pork for state governments to spread around, he ensured that the rifle contract was quickly signed. This deal left the average Confederate soldier of 1881 with a first-rate rifle topped with a sloppily-manufactured or poorly-converted Civil War bayonet, a situation which proved in the end to have little effect on his combat effectiveness in the fields of Virginia or the streets of Louisville.


If the Confederate inability to assemble a large stock of muzzle-loading rifles in the 1860s was a blessing in disguise, their lack of artillery proved to be even more of a boon. The handful of bronze smoothbore guns which they had acquired or cast during the Civil War rapidly became obsolete, but when it came time to find replacements Tredegar was fully engaged in rifle construction. Without another domestic manufactory capable of producing artillery, the solution for the Confederates, as for so many other powers, was the Krupp factory at Essen. Krupp was by no means judgemental with his clientele, and was more than happy to add the slave-owners of the Confederacy to Ottoman heathens and Russian autocrats in his order book.

After stiff negotiations, Krupp persuaded the Confederacy into a $2.4m contract for 300 pieces of artillery. The first guns were being crated up for transportation before the ink was dry, and the contract was completed by 1878. This gave the Confederate army time to familiarise themselves with the new guns, and to digest the lessons of the conflicts in which they had been used. The team of Confederate artillery officers sent to inspect the Essen works were also made welcome guests at Berlin, where- among many others- the urbane Prinz von Hohenlohe-Ingenfingen proved only too willing to give these American curiosities the benefit of his thoughts on artillery in the modern age.

Like all Krupp weapons, the new Confederate artillery consisted of cast steel guns with a horizontal sliding breech mechanism. The older muzzle-loaders were parcelled out to states home guard units, some of which saw service in secondary theatres. The contract included two main types of field weapon: two hundred 8.7cm C/73 guns, heavier weapons firing a seventeen pound shell, and fifty 7.5cm C/73, intended for use with the horse artillery, firing an eleven pound shell. Both types of gun were mobile, fast, accurate and hard-hitting, giving the Confederates a decided advantage in battle. The difficulty came in teaching the South’s rural population the complex principles of gun-laying. In the years before the war, Confederate regular artillery units began to carry a number of supernumerary gun-layers and to insist that all NCOs should be familiar with the basics of aiming the guns. These NCOs were later parcelled out among volunteer batteries, dramatically increasing their effectiveness in battle but resulting in complaints from officers that their prerogatives were being usurped.

On his own initiative, Krupp also managed to sell the Confederacy fifty 15cm Ring Kanone 1872. The Confederate army had originally envisaged buying field weapons from Krupp and coastal artillery from Armstrong, but Krupp persuaded them that these siege weapons could serve the latter role as well. These guns spent the pre-war period in a series of earth fieldworks around major Confederate ports, but as the Confederacy and Union spiralled closer to war Confederate commander-in-chief Thomas Jackson was persuaded that they could be of more use closer to the front. On the outbreak of war, a specially-assembled force of Krupp siege artillery rained 93lb shells down on the Union capital of Washington. Jackson intended this demonstration to bring the reality of war home to the Union government, and over the course of the war Confederate artillerymen and their Krupp guns would ensure that the Union armies received a similar message.

Loved the post on Union weaponry for the SMW and would be interested in seeing a more detailed version of material on the subject for the interwar years and through the first and second world wars..

I might have a think about the interwar years, but I was more interested in the period up to the Second Mexican War as a means of helping to explain why the Union lost again. How the Confederates raised $3m for rifles and $2.4m for artillery I'm frankly not sure, but if anybody has any comments on the plausibility of the above then by all means speak your mind.

 

[bguy]

Henry Cabot Lodge Part VII (1913-1917)

Awesome update. Just two quibbles.

In regards to the references on China:

In Asian affairs, Lodge convinced Roosevelt to officially recognize the Republic of China. Chinese nationalist and modernizers led by Sun Yat-Sen had recently over threw the decrepit Qing dynasty and declared China a Republic. Not knowing whether the new government would recognize European enclaves most European powers refused to recognize the state. With no Chinese enclaves the US had little to lose in recognizing the new government. Lodge also counseled that a China with close ties to the US could act as a counter weight to Japan. As a result the US and Republic of China signed a treaty of friendship and the US was the first nation to open lines of credit to the new government.

When Japan delivered it’s twenty-one demands, the US Senate passed a resolution supporting China’s resistance to these demands. The U.S. also offered assistance training and organizing the Chinese Army and Navy after the war was over.

There is a mention in Great War: American Front that China is fighting on the Entente's side during the war. I don't think China would come in on the Entente's side if they had a treaty of friendship with the US. (And the US certainly wouldn't be offering to help train and organize the Chinese Army if they were at war with China.)

Likewise as to 1916 election results, 61% of the popular vote seems way too high for TR. I don't think the war was going well enough in 1916 for Roosevelt to win that big a landslide, and it is really hard to imagine Roosevelt losing New York if he won 61% of the national popular vote. (Also, Debs seems to have been a legitimate candidate for the Socialist nomination in 1920, and I can't see him being taken seriously by anyone if he lost that badly in 1916.)

Likewise as the senate returns, in Walk in Hell, Herman Bruck estimates the Socialists will gain two, maybe three senate seats. Flora seems to respect Bruck's calculations, so they were probably pretty accurate. (Certainly if the Socialists had done so well as to pick up eight senate seats, it would probably have been mentioned in the novels, as that is a huge electoral victory.)

Thus I would recommend taking Roosevelt's popular vote percentage down to maybe 51% (which is still an impressive performance in a three way election, but is low enough to make it at least possible he could lose his home state), and probably just give the Socialists a three seat pick-up in the Senate. (Which will also be consistent with Flora's statement in Walk in Hell that the Democrats still have big majorities in both houses even after the Socialist gains that year.)

In regatrds to the 1916 election. Walk in Hell has one socialist character (Herman Bruck) say we should take New York on election night. I interpretted that as Teddy lost his home state, which i find a little shocking. My only reasoning was that the remembrance day riots created alot of sympathy. what do you guys think. should i re-edit to remove NY?

Walk in Hell is unambiguous that the Socialists carried New York in the 1916 election. I agree it doesn't make much sense, but since it is directly part of the novel canon we are stuck with it. And yeah backlash to the government crackdown after the Remembrance Days Riots is pretty much the only explanation I can see for how TR lost the state.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

New York has a Socialist background (It's the state of Flora Blackford, you know...) I would say it wasn't safe Dem, but rather lean Dem before 1912, and the crushing of the riots probably shifted it a bit more Socialist, giving them the state. After all, would you say that a state that just had a Democratic president crush popular riots by military force would vote for that Democratic president for re-election?

 

[Trotsky]

TR spoke of being comfortably re-elected, of sharing the views of the "large majority of the American people." Probably not a LBJ or FDR landslide, but no Bush 2004 squeaker either.

 

[bguy]

TR spoke of being comfortably re-elected, of sharing the views of the "large majority of the American people." Probably not a LBJ or FDR landslide, but no Bush 2004 squeaker either.

51% is a pretty comfortable reelection victory in a three way race. If the numbers were say Roosevelt 51%, Debs 41%, the Republican candidate 7% or so then that is a 10 point win for TR which is comparable to what Reagan did against Carter, and Clinton did against Dole. (Both of which were decisive victories if not quite landslides.)

Also, IIRC the reference to sharing the views of a large majority of the American people referred specifically to the question of whether to make a status quo ante bellum peace with the Confederacy. Since President Mahan's article has the Republican candidate also favoring continued prosecution of the war, TR would be able to claim that his view on prosecuting the war to victory was backed by a large majority of the American people since, when you combine the Democrat and Republican votes (both of which support continuing the war), it is a large majority.

 

[President Mahan]

TL 191 post:

China:
Damn I missed that discussion by the Enos family over the Chinese. I still think most of my post works, minus the offer to reform its army. We have laid the groundwork for good US-Chinese relations. China could have felt compelled to declare war on the Quadruple Alliance to get back Tsingtao and stave off any predatory moves by Britain and Japan. Much like it did in OTL. China could have declared war on the QA without the U.S. bothering to declare war in return. TR was a more subtle statesman than people give him credit for.

I think I have a way to salvage most of it and add some interesting stuff on China at the time.


Presidential Election:
The contention among the posts is whethe TR had a big victory in just the three part sysetme or among the entire electorate. I think Roosevelt won more than 51% even with two other major parties running. First I think that more that 60% supported the war. Read all the POV's around the election time in Walk in Hell and everyone is repeating the same mantra "this war is terrible but it will be worse if we lose or give up now." Its not just soldiers saying this. Plus I think Remembrance ideology is so ingrained in the population that most people could not stomach losing another war. In retrospect think I was being a little overly generous with a 36% Debs victory it was probably like 33%.

Debs is running on a stsus quo ante bellum peace platform, which makes the election a referendum on the war. So I should have made it clearer that I was thinking Roosevelt drew a lot of normally Republican voters because they wanted to ensure the war continued and Debs was not elected.

Further by that point in Walk in Hell people, outside Flora Hamburg and Socialist Party HQ on the lower east side, the war is bleak but it has been a success. Rebs are almost out of Maryland, Kentucky has been conquered and the US is almost entirely on Reb soil. This leads me to believe support for the war was more than 60%. At least Roosevelts 6%1 plus 3-6%
For the republican candidate.

I also went back and searched all the books for mentions of Debs. There is nothing that says he was the most successful Socialist candidate.
so he doesn't not have to exceed Robert Lafollete's numbers. Craigo mentions that Debs did better his second time around. If Debs only pulled in 33% of the popular vote on his first try, 36% would still be an improvement. Which could work if we imagine Teddy was very popular in 1912 and just came in short of a majority in 1912 like 48-49%.

Next if you search a Walk in Hell, it was clear from the outset no one except maybe the old party hands like Hosea Blackford wanted Debs to run. Four major characters say there is no way Debs can beat TR, even with him running for a 3rd term and big increases in the Socialist Party vote. So it seems Debs being trounced by TR in 1916 is very plausible and says a lot about why he was ultimately not re-elected.

Finally TR having the biggest popular majority victory in almost 100 years now and then losing the next year to a guy with a first name of Upton is pretty interesting. Leaves a lot of explaining for the 1917 to 1921 Lodge post. Still if enough people disagree I am willing to come down to Roosevelt winning 56-58%, Debs 34% and Theodore E. Burton 7-9%.


Congressional Elections:
I missed the Herman Bruck mention, so I will edit the congressional election. I can't remember my reasoning for having 18 (S) Senators anyway. How many Socialist Senators do we think they have? I think before the election they have 9 and may be they pick up 3 making 12 after the election. There should be 34 States in 1915 with Kentucky making 35 right? So what do we think the Democrats have like 48-50 Senators?

 

[bguy]

China could have felt compelled to declare war on the Quadruple Alliance to get back Tsingtao and stave off any predatory moves by Britain and Japan.

Would China really think it had and chance of getting Tsingtao back though? If Japan is in the war on the Entente's side it obviously got paid off in some manner, and Tsingtao is the obvious prize given the US didn't have any Pacific possessions at the start of the war.

The contention among the posts is whethe TR had a big victory in just the three part sysetme or among the entire electorate. I think Roosevelt won more than 51% even with two other major parties running. First I think that more that 60% supported the war. Read all the POV's around the election time in Walk in Hell and everyone is repeating the same mantra "this war is terrible but it will be worse if we lose or give up now."

On the other hand Custer seemed legitimately concerned that TR might lose. I don't think he would have been so worried if TR was cruising to an obvious landslide win.

Further by that point in Walk in Hell people, outside Flora Hamburg and Socialist Party HQ on the lower east side, the war is bleak but it has been a success. Rebs are almost out of Maryland, Kentucky has been conquered and the US is almost entirely on Reb soil. This leads me to believe support for the war was more than 60%. At least Roosevelts 6%1 plus 3-6%
For the republican candidate.

Well just consider some of OTL's wartime elections. In 1864, Lincoln only got 55% of the popular vote. And in 1944, FDR only got a little over 53% of the popular vote. And those were elections at times when the wars in question were much more clearly being won than the First Great War was in TL-191 circa 1916. Thus its hard to believe TR could have done any better than about 55% at most.

Congressional Elections:
I missed the Herman Bruck mention, so I will edit the congressional election. I can't remember my reasoning for having 18 (S) Senators anyway. How many Socialist Senators do we think they have? I think before the election they have 9 and may be they pick up 3 making 12 after the election. There should be 34 States in 1915 with Kentucky making 35 right? So what do we think the Democrats have like 48-50 Senators?

Alrighty, lets consider where we could see the Socialists having Senators after the 1916 elections.

California. Maybe one seat. (We know Hiram Johnson is a prominent Socialist in TL-191, so clearly the party has some muscle in California.) At a guess I would say this is one of the seats the Socialists picked up in the 1916 election, since California had a senate seat up that year.

Colorado. Could have one or even both seats. Its mentioned in TCCH that it has a strong union tradition in the state.

Dakota. Could have a seat. The state went for TR in 1916, but the Socialists clearly have a presence in it.

Illinois. Could have a seat. The Socialists have a strong presence in Chicago. And the Republicans are also said to be strong in the state, which could let the Socialist candidate win a three way race.

Indiana. Definitely have at least one seat here. (Debs) Could have both seats since the state is mentioned as being strongly Socialist. Indiana also had a senate election in 1916, so this could be another one of the seats the Socialists gained that year.

Minnesota. Could have a seat. Fairly progressive state.

West Virginia. Could have a seat. Strong union presence there.

Wisconsin. Definitely have at least one seat here. (La Follette). Conceivably they could have both.

Wyoming. Could have a seat. Fairly progressive state in OTL at this time. (First state to enact Woman's Suffrage.)

So if we give the Socialists both seats in Indiana and Wisconsin that comes out to... 12 senators. Good call.

As for the Republicans, I see them probably having both senators in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, and maybe a senator from Minnesota and Wyoming, so that would give them 8 senators. (I could conceivably see them also having at least one senator from Idaho and Colorado, but that might be making their senatorial delegation a little too big.)

So for the 34 states (excluding Utah), if the Socialists have 12 senators, and the Republicans 8, then the Democrats would have 48.

Which leaves Utah's two senators. What party would they most likely belong to? I've always thought Utah's congressional delegates would belong to their own party (something akin to OTL's Irish Nationalist Party), but that idea has never been popular in this thread.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Utah wouldn't have Senators. Their statehood was revoked, remember? Anyway, before that revokation, I would say Democratic.

And when they're readmitted, everything goes Socialist. Utah is red there until their statehood is revoked yet again.

And West Virginia would be strongly Democratic.

 

[bguy]

Utah wouldn't have Senators. Their statehood was revoked, remember? Anyway, before that revokation, I would say Democratic.

Well during the American Civil War, the Senate didn't expel the Senators from the rebelling states when their states first seceded. Instead the southern senators (who didn't resign) were only expelled in July of 1861 for failing to take their seats. And indeed Andrew Johnson, since he stayed loyal to the Union, continued to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate until March of 1862 when he was appointed the military governor of the state. Those precedents predate the POD for TL-191, so there is a good chance they would still be followed. If so then the fate of Utah's senators would likely depend on their own actions. If they left Philadelphia upon the outbreak of the rebellion, or spoke in favor of the uprising then they would of course be expelled and their seats declared vacant. But if they opposed the Utah uprising (or at least stayed quiet about it) there really wouldn't be any legal basis to strip them of their seats. (And we do see Mormon characters in the novels that are loyal to the United States and critical of the uprising, so it is not out of the question that Utah's senators might have opposed the rebellion.)

And West Virginia would be strongly Democratic.

West Virginia is a conservative state, but it also has a lot of miners which are a strong Socialist constituency in TL-191, so a socially conservative, hawkish Socialist could plausibly win there. If not West Virginia though then maybe give the Socialist a senator in Nevada instead which also has a lot of miners. (Though the Socialists seem to be inexplicably weak in Nevada in TL-191. Coolidge carried the state in 1928 which is pretty astonishing given that Blackford was a westerner and thus should have had much more appeal there than a New Englander.)

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Well during the American Civil War, the Senate didn't expel the Senators from the rebelling states when their states first seceded. Instead the southern senators (who didn't resign) were only expelled in July of 1861 for failing to take their seats. And indeed Andrew Johnson, since he stayed loyal to the Union, continued to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate until March of 1862 when he was appointed the military governor of the state. Those precedents predate the POD for TL-191, so there is a good chance they would still be followed. If so then the fate of Utah's senators would likely depend on their own actions. If they left Philadelphia upon the outbreak of the rebellion, or spoke in favor of the uprising then they would of course be expelled and their seats declared vacant. But if they opposed the Utah uprising (or at least stayed quiet about it) there really wouldn't be any legal basis to strip them of their seats. (And we do see Mormon characters in the novels that are loyal to the United States and critical of the uprising, so it is not out of the question that Utah's senators might have opposed the rebellion.)

Well, that's true. Anyway, Utah is likely Democratic until the end of the Senators' terms and Socialist for its brief existence as a restored state.

West Virginia is a conservative state, but it also has a lot of miners which are a strong Socialist constituency in TL-191, so a socially conservative, hawkish Socialist could plausibly win there. If not West Virginia though then maybe give the Socialist a senator in Nevada instead which also has a lot of miners. (Though the Socialists seem to be inexplicably weak in Nevada in TL-191. Coolidge carried the state in 1928 which is pretty astonishing given that Blackford was a westerner and thus should have had much more appeal there than a New Englander.)

You forget one thing that makes West Virginia different in ATL. It's a border state, and it's very existence rides on rejection of the CSA.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Are you sure this isn't too much a landslide?

 

[bguy]

You forget one thing that makes West Virginia different in ATL. It's a border state, and it's very existence rides on rejection of the CSA.

That's true, but there is no reason a Socialist senate candidate couldn't also be strongly anti-CSA.

Anyway, upon reflection I agree with you that a Socialist senator from West Virginia isn't an especially likely event. That said any Senate breakdown should have a few irregularities in it. (Much like how the current U.S. Senate has a Republican Senator in Maine and Illinois and Democrat Senators in Alaska and Indiana.) There are always going to be some surprising election results due to things like scandals, state party infighting or an exceptionally good (or exceptionally bad) candidate happening. As such there probably should be at least one or two Socialist senators from Democrat leaning states just to represent that factor.

 

[Turquoise Blue]

That's true, but there is no reason a Socialist senate candidate couldn't also be strongly anti-CSA.

Anyway, upon reflection I agree with you that a Socialist senator from West Virginia isn't an especially likely event. That said any Senate breakdown should have a few irregularities in it. (Much like how the current U.S. Senate has a Republican Senator in Maine and Illinois and Democrat Senators in Alaska and Indiana.) There are always going to be some surprising election results due to things like scandals, state party infighting or an exceptionally good (or exceptionally bad) candidate happening. As such there probably should be at least one or two Socialist senators from Democrat leaning states just to represent that factor.

Massachusetts and Rhode Island? Maybe Connecticut too. Idaho?

 

[President Mahan]

I put up the edits for the last Lodge Article. I brought down Roosevelts victory to 56%. I hope I explained my case.

As for Socialist Senators. I brough the number down to twelve and updated the list of Senators. As for where they are from, I imagine theat the early socialist are generally from smaller mid-western and western states. I think Craigo and the articles in this series do a good job of showing how the core of Democrat Remembrance support is in New England and Western states. I find the idea of New England as a center of militarism and revanchism pretty interesting. Craig doesnt have a New England state voting for a Socialist President until 1924. As such I dont think New England doesnt vote for a socialist senator until 1920, when the Socialist gain a majority in the Senate.

I added a little on the Mormons, however for now i am leaving open to what happened to Utah for the next article or until someone can write a comprehensive article on the Mormon rebellion. A good article would be on the constitutional status of Utah during the rebellion and its subsequent occupation.

I also added a paragraph on China in the 1915 section. Hope this help explains things. More of China will follow in the next article.

The next Lodge article will take a while, probably will take me until mid-august. Again alot is happening. It is the second to last article. I think I have some great ideas on Roosevelt and Lodges vision for a Post-War world order. An explanation of the peace. How it affected the Party, the origins of German- American split and the economic crises following the war.

Any thoughts on the naval bits? I hope to throw up an article on the raids on the Jersey Shore soon.

Great Map Turquoise

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Just remember, Utah votes Al Smith in 1940.