TL-191: Filling the Gaps

[Tiro]

Well I was just considering the career of Hosea Blackford quite recently and was struck by the absence of any image from him or any other Fictional Candidate for the Southern Victory presidencies - which started me thinking on just what (or rather just who exactly) Mr Blackford ought to look like.

Now it took me some time to parse the candidates for the role of 'Life Model' in this particular bit of Fantasy Casting (and amusingly enough Mr Charles Bronson occurred to me, given his history as a miner), but what finally clinched it was coming to the conclusion that it would a decided bonus if the person in question was an actor who had played Abraham Lincoln but who was a good bit more handsome than Old Abe (not least because this would make it more credible that Miss Flora Hamburger had been romanced by a man almost twice her age and thoroughly enjoyed the experience).

He'd also have to be a man with a paternal or an avuncular cast, the sort of man who lent an All-American charm to Socialism and a down-to-Earth quality that helped people see past the technicalities of the dialectic to the friendship this Party would show the working man and all his family, in good times and bad.

I like to imagine that he is almost as famous for spinning a fine yarn as a way of subtly getting his point across or just defusing tensions as Abraham Lincoln was (I'm also fond of the idea that he was one of the first writers to produce a Life of Lincoln sympathetic to its subject).

^I suspect that you will understand my choice and I hope you will approve; amusingly I only recalled that Mr Fonda had quite recently been highlighted as a possible casting choice for another denizen of Timeline-191 on this thread after coming to the conclusion that he was the perfect choice for the Face of Hosea Blackford.^

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

^I suspect that you will understand my choice and I hope you will approve; amusingly I only recalled that Mr Fonda had quite recently been highlighted as a possible casting choice for another denizen of Timeline-191 on this thread after coming to the conclusion that he was the perfect choice for the Face of Hosea Blackford.^

Actually, you know what, i could definitely see that. Especially in hiw handsome youth and even frail years.

The only main reason i picked him for Pinkard was that he kinda struck a chord with me when he was playing Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West. Quite the mean bastard there - and by that i mean that even someone who is not usually picked as a villain can play an awesome villain.

 

[Tiro]

I have to agree that Mr Fonda made a memorably chilling villain and I can definitely understand why it made you think of him when considering Pinkard; however I think Mr Fonda a bit TOO handsome and not quite hulking enough.

He looks like a man who GIVES orders, rather than a man who TAKES orders, if you know what I mean. I don't have any particular casting choice in mind for him myself, so I'll have to give some thought to the question before I can throw in my personal image of what Jefferson Davis Pinkard looks like.

 

[Tiro]

Another casting choice which has repeatedly occurred to me (and which I have decided to post for the sake of public scrutiny) has long seemed supremely obvious to my mind and I hope you'll all find it agreeable.

Ignore the detail of that uniform and just picture that face looking out at you from behind the business end of a Flamethrower …

 

[Tiro]

It is interesting to contemplate the results of US Presidential Elections following the conclusion of the Great War; while I am not the man to describe the various twists and turns of Party Conventions or Electioneering or sundry Campaigning one does feel that I can at least offer some interesting suggestions concerning this era when the Socialists witnessed their triumphant naturalisation as an American Institution (not merely a peculiar political dialectic with roots in foreign soil).

- As Craigo himself, the founder of the thread we all now follow, has previously indicated it is hard not to see 1920 as the year when Theodore Roosevelt proved himself to be a President more popular than his own family; it seems likely that this should be the case by virtue of the fact that the electorate had been allowed four years to contemplate the consequences of almost forty years of Democratic Domination at the Presidential Polls (and to an only slight lesser degree, wherever else the United States went to the ballot box). The Great War had truly been the triumph of Democratic Remembrance, as all knew.

It had been a triumph paid for in the life-blood of American youth, poured out to drown Canada and the Confederate States; this was the price of War and as yet not a single soul seriously wished to dishonour this sacrifice by dismissing its necessity - but the Price of Remembrance was also measured in the toil, tears and taxes of the General Public, which state of affairs the General Staff and the Democratic Party seemed perfectly content to maintain ad infinitum to the glory of the American Empire.

General Public, having won his war and been unimpressed with the General Staff's contention that it was now time to start getting ready for the NEXT one (a contention backed by the Democratic Party on the understanding that one ought not to break up a winning combination like the Military Industrial complex) was now in search of an alternative to Remembrance Without End.

Having spent decades attempting to prove themselves to be just that, The Socialists finally succeeded.


Quite frankly I suspect that what sealed the deal for the Socialists at the polls was NOVELTY; Forty Democratic Years had brought the United States grief and glory in equal measure (eight years of Republican administration seemed to have only brought them grief - and the party would continue to labour under the Mark of Blaine "like Caine, but less winning" for all foreseeable elections still to come), but after eight years of T Roosevelt in the White House (and many more spent leaping off the pages of every newspaper by the same) even that popular Hero had become excessively familiar.

The Democrats, of course, were not eager to change Horses in the middle of a bone fide Triumph and therefore threw themselves into harness with their ageing, yet apparently inexhaustible Bull Moose who was now one of the Immortals.

Yet it was New blood that was wanted (along with a chance to look to the interests of the individual, not those of the War Machine or the Political Machines); the only party promising this was the Socialists, so they reaped the benefit - the result was an unprecedented result and something in the nature of a political experiment.


-The success of this experiment may be measured may be measured by the enthusiastic re-election of Mr Upton Sinclair and Mr Hosea Blackford in 1924; they had succeeded beyond all doubt in proving that theirs was not the party of dialectic as foreign as it was abstracted, but instead the Party of and for the Working Man.

It was also the Political Party which had shown the nerve to challenge the militarisation of the United States and successfully begun to disassemble the domineering military industrial complex that had glutted itself on the raw materials and manpower of the United States, with the eventual outcome of a consumer industry that would take the lifestyle of the average US citizen to new heights of comfort.

How much of this was deliberate is an interesting question - that the Socialists would wish to curb the power of the Military by diminishing its role as Most Favoured Customer to the Manufacturers and also improve the prospects of the Workers is part and parcel of their manifesto but one can only wonder if they expected the Industrialists to re-exert such a grip on the purses and the imagination of the masses by catering to their creature comforts!


One feature of the post-Remembrance Elections which kept the Socialists in Power (albeit not always popular) for twelve years that continues to intrigue me is the fact that not once did the Democratic Party put forward some victorious general of the Great War at the head or the foot of the Presidential Ticket.

If the Democrats could carry those military men Presidents Hancock and Mahan into the White House on the back of service in losing wars, it seems mightily peculiar that in the wake of the Greatest Victory enjoyed by the United States since the American War of Independence not one of the men who led the Armies to Victory in that conflict seems to have even been considered for nomination (even President Coolidge and President Hoover, though Military Men, never seem to have held particularly High Rank).

I cannot help but wonder if this is due to perceived disenchantment amongst the Electorate or if there is some other reason driving the Democratic Party to neglect the possibility of adding some martial glory to the ticket; in all honesty I wonder if there may be an unspoken fear on the part of politicians in the United States that the education and debt of inspiration owed to the Imperial German Army on the part of the United States Military has left the General Staff (and the Joint Chiefs) with a sense of their own power greater than is strictly comfortable in a Democratic Institution.

It is a fear likely to be exacerbated by the fact that the German Army effectively BECAME the State for the duration of the Great War; it is not impossible that the Democrats may have failed (or rather deliberately declined) to make Generals or ex-Generals a part of their Presidential Ticket in order to re-emphasise the supremacy of the Civilian Government over the Heads of the Armed Forces to emphasise that the extraordinary powers they had exercised (powers of Life and Death, even to the point of setting aside the Constitution) had been for the duration only and could no longer be taken for granted.

The message that the US Military was the Nation in Arms and not the National Raison d'être seems to have been far more explicit when it came from the Socialist Party, but I wonder if the Democrats did not send it out in their own more subtle fashion as well.

Whatever the case, it is hard to deny that this de-emphasising of militarisation in society can only be said to have been good for the Political Health (and the Mental Health) of the United States, but seems to have done no favours for its military (especially the Navy, which as the vehicle of Foreign Adventurism would likely have been cut far more deeply than the Army, the engine of National Defence).

Given that neither the Confederacy or Canada or Mexico were in any position to threaten the United States then this does not seem an unfair price to pay for a generally better quality of life … at least in the short term.


- 1928: I've been ruminating over the Democratic choice of candidates in this year and what I see interests me. My guess is that Calvin Coolidge was chosen partly for his being New England to the bone (and according to some reports the Democratic Party seems to have been wavering in this constituency, so this is more a consolidation of traditional dominance than anything) and also for his service as a military man (who was not one of the Generals who had sent so many to their deaths and wielded such intimidating power in the United States) but what I see as really clinching his nomination would be his famous ability to keep his mouth shut.

Quite frankly having been defeated in not just one, but TWO elections by a Party as different from themselves as possible The Democrats almost certainly have been asking hard questions of themselves and more particularly of each other - if there is no movement in the Party for a renovation of its policies and its approach to the Population then I would be very much surprised, but given the long record of successes behind them (forty years is a LONG time in politics) I would be equally astonished if there were not an equally strong lobby trying to keep faith with the 'Business as usual is the BEST business' approach.

Given the deadlock likely to ensure in the course of this soul-searching disagreement and the arguments through which it manifests itself, it seems quite possible that the nomination would be captured by a candidate able to seem all things to all delegates by virtue of the fact that it's quite impossible to shoot your mouth off when you use words the way a sharpshooter uses his bullets.

I would suspect that his appeal to the populace would be the 'Small Government' tendencies with which Coolidge is likely to have tempered the classic Democratic military-industrial outlook; put simply he offered traditional Democratic strengths in terms of hard-line foreign policy and military preparedness but tempered with a lessened tendency to meddle in the lives of ordinary citizens in the course of achieving this. It is an approach that at the time might have seemed to offer the best of both Worlds to the Electorate - assuming someone could be found to express exactly that attitude.

My guess is that 'Silent Cal' failed to find the right mouthpiece for the job in Mr Amos Pinchot; it is likely that he hoped to borrow a little of President Roosevelt's lustre without being lost in his shadow (hence his choice of TR's tagalong rather than one of his direct relations), as well as show some appeal to progressives and portray himself as a man who would not let the interests of Big Business dominate either his campaign or his presidency (it is also possible that the fact Mr Pinchot's sister was the wife of a British Diplomat would have eased the tensions likely to be renewed with a New England Democrat in the White House) - unfortunately by recruiting Mr Pinchot he also accepted the burden of the man's tendency to moralise at the expense of his colleagues and the quarrels that followed.

The fact that he also acquired the enmity felt towards Mr Pinchot by Big Business cannot have helped his campaign fund very much either - in the end, however, I think that it was Mr Coolidge's rather cool and understated manner (as well as his history as a sometime strike-breaker) which cost him the Election.

In the face of what I imagine to be Mr Hosea Blackford's easy, human charm and the appeal of ever-increasing prosperity under the Socialists the Coolidge/Pinchot ticket suffered by virtue of being an entirely-plausible alternative that nobody happened to be seeking at the moment.

It was a moment that would not last for very much longer and the next Coolidge ticket would directly benefit from the countdown to the Second Great War that commenced with the failure of the United States to adequately respond to Japanese provocations in the course of the Pacific War (which can only have been viewed with acute interest and contempt by Confederate Revanchists - if a tiny collection of islands could now defy the United States, what might the far-larger Confederacy achieve?).

 

[Tiro]

One fears that I rambled a little in that discourse, but I hope that at least I did not bore or produce ideas entirely without merit.

 

[Tiro]

^This is Willie Knight as he wants to appear in the Public Eye; soulful, rugged, sympathetic, a real cowboy Hero and handsome with it.^

^This is what Willie Knight gets up to when the Public Eye is a safe distance away, at least on one of his good days.^

 

[bguy]

An intriguing analysis of the post-First Great War political scene in the United States. I do think it misses one key point though, the fact that upon taking power the Socialists largely accepted the continuation of the Remembrance national security state. Oh they trimmed the edges of it a little bit. There are references to the Socialists cutting the military budget, and there are hints in the novels that they abolished the rationing boards. (We don't get any more references to those boards after the First Great War concludes, so it seems likely they were abolished afterwards.) But for the most part the Socialists continued the Democrat's hawkish policies. They maintained for a generation the American Empire won by Roosevelt. (Even crushing a Canadian uprising by force of arms in 1924-1925). Unwilling to restore Canada's independence, they proved similarly unwilling to try and integrate Canada into the United States or even to establish a civilian occupation authority over Canada. (This last can be inferred from the fact that Occupied Canada's court system continues to consist of military tribunals throughout the Socialist presidencies). They continue to allow even more extreme anti-insurgent tactics in Utah. (General Pershing suggests in 1926 that the US Army in Utah is taking and shooting hostages in retaliation for the killing of American soldiers is an accepted and expected policy.) And they continued conscription. (As seen by Armstrong Grimes being drafted in peacetime.)

Thus rather than representing a repudiation of the Remembrance ideology, the Socialist electoral victories effectively enshrined that ideology. The curious thing is why the Socialists did this. It might have made sense if the Socialists accepted the continuation of Remembrance policies as the price that had to be paid for them to be able to enact their economic and social policies, but as we see in the novels the Socialists are largely frustrated at enacting their economic policies. (As witnessed by the fact that the Socialists were still trying to get Old Age Pensions and Unemployment Insurance enacted as late as the Smith Administration.) You would think the Socialists would have traded their continuing hardline Remembrance policies in exchange for the Democrats giving in on some of the Socialists's domestic policy priorities.

At any rate, the Socialist acceptance of Remembrance helps explain why the Democrats didn't run any Generals in this time frame. By the Socialists essentially accepting Remembrance policies, they largely neutralized Remembrance as a meaningful political issue. After all what would say General Wood in 1924 or a General Pershing in 1928 have campaigned on? Promising to maintain the American Empire? The Socialists were already doing that. There wouldn't be a really meaningful foreign policy difference between the two parties until the 1940 campaign and by then any prominent Great War generals would have been getting pretty long in the tooth to run for president. (With the exception of Daniel MacArthur, but he was still on active duty and thus not available to run for president.)

 

[Tiro]

An excellent point Mister B - in all honesty my ideas are based more on the idea that there should be some mirror image of the Tragedy playing out in the Confederate States North of the Mason/Dixon line, a drama of the 'Political Thriller' sort which helps explain how the United States was able to win the Great War and then win the Peace that followed (yet still find itself vulnerable to the less fortunate Confederacy - relatively speaking - in the first days of the Great Reunification War).

My idea for an ongoing theme in US Political Life would be the conscious rejection of Militarism (as opposed to Imperialism, which is closely related but not always QUITE identical) in favour of the Democratic Principle which left the Northern Colossus somewhat more ill-prepared for the Second Great War than the Revanchist South but INFINITELY more healthy on a Political and Institutional level.

Admittedly this was in part born from my contemplating the question of how Gordon McSweeney might have come to power as a dictator in the United States and my increasing conviction that The United States was far likelier to offer The Presbyterian Butcher opportunities in that respect if it STILL won the Great War … but lost the Peace that followed.

I therefore took the liberty of introducing at least the POTENTIAL for that sort of outcome into FILLING THE GAPS, just for the sake of pointing out that the Worst Possible Outcome is not necessarily the one we are obliged to live with by virtue of our Ancestor's actions.

Something of the same line of thinking has fuelled my ideas regarding the 'Confederate Civil War in 34' which we've been discussing elsewhere - which I'm increasingly coming to regard as a fine excuse to give the Confederate States a 'South Africa' rather than a 'Third Reich' ending to the first century of its existence.

I hope you readers and fellow-contributors will forgive me for getting my ideas for a potential multiverse mixed in with this take on Timeline-191.

 

[Tiro]

An intriguing analysis of the post-First Great War political scene in the United States. I do think it misses one key point though, the fact that upon taking power the Socialists largely accepted the continuation of the Remembrance national security state.

That being said I do have a few ideas as to why this should be the case:-

- Firstly because it would be political suicide for any Administration to ask the nation to surrender what has been gained only after hideous losses in the course of a most horrid and terrible War; given that the Socialists are a very young party in their first Administration (without the reserves of Institutional Loyalty that allows Governing Parties to make hard choices and survive at the polls afterwards), it is perhaps unsurprising that they didn't want to try re-inventing the Wheel from the start.

I'd imagine that the problems suffered by President Blackford and President Smith rather set back any hopes for a Peaceful, Progressively Pacifistic agenda on the part of the Socialist Party for some time to come - for one thing even if the Socialists were contemplating some sort of liberal settlement for Canada, it would be very hard to justify to the generation which Conquered that unfortunate dominion after the Tories sent it up in flames not once but TWICE.

It's sort of hard to set a nation free when it keeps trying to beat you to death with its shackles.


- More to the point General Public may be sick of War and Revanchism, but that doesn't mean he wants to be pushed around (so some modest preparation for Defensive War will be tolerated albeit not embraced to the same degree of Remembrance Fervour).

Even the Socialists would probably be cautious about leaving the United States ENTIRELY de-militarised less than a decade after the Great War (especially given the unsettled political situation in the Confederacy and Mexico, both of them nations with cause to bear a Grudge).


- One rather cynical idea that occurred to me as an explanation for the Socialist Party (to some degree at least the Party of Pacifism through International Class Solidarity) would be the thought that allowing the US Army a free hand in the treatment of subject populations might just be cheaper than challenging those methods (in terms of political capital, possibly in terms of political stability as well) and FAR cheaper than the expense in time, manpower and financial investment required to apply a more liberal policy (not to mention the political capital required to justify a local equivalent of a Marshall Plan in the wake of a War which one suspects that even the US could only barely afford to foot the bill for).

But this is a dark suspicion, rather than a serious hypothesis … or so I hope.

 

[Tiro]

Confederate States Army Commanders (The Great War)

As you good readers will have noticed by now, I have an almighty aversion to letting characters named but not really described (amongst others) go undeveloped upon; I have therefore taken up the challenge looking up the characters listed in a somewhat-older article in this thread and attempting to fit them into the Confederate War Effort during the 1914-1917 Conflict.

Please pardon the somewhat sketchy and incomplete quality of this write-up.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=4605143&postcount=388


GENERAL STAFF
Chief of Staff (Clifton Rodes Breckinridge): Appointed to be the guiding genius of the Confederate Army as much for his family connections as for his own competences (his father had been a pivotal figure in the claiming of Kentucky and might have been the second President of the Confederate states but for lingering grudges on the part of Braxton Bragg and his own 'excessively conciliatory' attitudes toward the US not come into play), CR Breckinridge nevertheless proved in the course of the Great War that his appointment cannot be dismissed as mere nepotism to the detriment of the Confederate States.

Not one of History's great captains, as Chief of Staff Breckinridge did not need to be - his diplomatic abilities and staunch political courage proved far more valuable as he navigated the prickly thicket of State's Rights and clashing demands from his generals (men of high temper, power and influence in their own right) in the interests of maintaining a coherent National War effort.

His success may be measured in the continuing coherence of the Confederate War Effort amongst the several states and his own subordinate commanders to the bitter end of the War Effort; as far too many examples from the War of Secession itself go to show, this co-operation could not be taken for granted in the slightest even in victory - to maintain it in the face of inexorable defeat is a minor miracle.

Increasingly convinced that the Confederate States simply could not win the long war that continued to encroach upon them, Breckinridge nevertheless put aside his own doubts - tending towards despair after the loss of his family's Home State and the ensuing implosion of his own brother - to doggedly persist in his efforts to ensure that the Confederacy might make something as close to a White Peace as possible.

It was a failed attempt, but not a contemptible one.


Deputy Chief of Staff (Robert Lee Bullard - followed by JEB Stuart Junior): Inclined as he was to the 'Louisville' school of philosophy the Confederate Chief of Staff was too seasoned a political actor to entirely reject the 'Fire Eaters' of whom Robert Lee Bullard was to be the most influential - an administrator of merit and a man with a certain gift for diplomacy in his own right, Bullard was also a man who had badgered his own parents into renaming him for the Great Lee and whose spirited patriotism was only barely eroded by his spell as Breckinridge's deputy during the Great War (winning the nickname 'Counter Attack' Bullard for his determination to deny the Yankees tenure in their gains).

Unfortunately his record of complete co-operation with Chief of Staff Breckinridge foundered on the latter's determination to put the Confederate Coloured population into the battle line to help prop up the nation's faltering reserves of manpower - Bullard, incredulous, obstinately refused to believe that Coloureds were fit to fight even after the Red Rebellion and proved obstructive.

He was quietly removed from his position, replaced by JEB Stuart Junior and granted a field command by way of compensation (a prospect which he found agreeable), eventually assigned to govern occupied Haiti by virtue of his fluent command of French - he found the experience an education, to say the least.


Adjutant General (JEB Stuart Junior - followed by Wade Hampton V): A gentleman and an officer more diligent than gallant, General Stuart was appointed to the office of Adjutant General when it was realised that while in possession of a brave man's courage, he lacked the fundamental ruthlessness to make it as a field commander (it was his own powerful sentimentality that blinded him to the disloyalty of the negro Pompey and fuelled a personal grudge against the exemplary Sergeant Featherston which would cost the Confederacy dear, all for the sake of his son).

Promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff for his willingness to accept Coloured Soldiers into the service as something more than pioneers (wags have claimed that Pompey had been trained up as a living example of a negro's ability to surpass a white officer in the conduct of his duty, but was held back because the white man in this instance was JEB Stuart the Third), General Stuart would become the backbone and the beating heart of the Confederate Army between the Wars - and a stalwart pillar of the Confederate State.

His reward for that utter loyalty (bred in part of the very sort of sentimental attachment that had cost the Confederacy so dear) and the recreation of the Confederate Army as a superb instrument of mobile warfare was death by Snakebite.



ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA
General Commanding (Wade Hampton V - followed by Joseph Hardee - followed by Charles Summerall)

The 'Glory Boys' of the Confederate Army in the War of Secession, following the Army of Kentucky's triumph in the Second Mexican War the Army of Northern Virginia had been given cause to look to their laurels - under the leadership of that able, unsympathetic and ambitious commander General Wade Hampton V those laurels would be burnished to a new lustre in the course of the Big Wheel (no Confederate formation took more enemy soil or held it for longer during the Great War), the fortuitous product of good fortune, spirited troops, acute focus of resources and razor-keen opportunism that carried this Army to the gates of Baltimore and to Philadelphia's moat the River Susquehanna.

As General Hampton was swift to realise it was a fine advance but impossible to go further, quite possibly unaffordable in terms of casualties and certainly unsustainable from the Confederacy's considerable yet dwindling resources of War Material; tactfully manoeuvred out of his position when his contribution to the War became more political than was strictly desirable he was promoted to the position of Adjutant General on the understanding that his services were too useful to lose, but that his increasing focus on the political would more easily be coped with in Richmond than on the Battlefront.


His replacement General Joseph 'By the Book' Hardee was to prove himself as robustly consistent and useful a commanding officer as one would expect from a grandson of 'Old Reliable' but lacked Hampton's good luck (not to mention the latter's intelligent but excessive aggression); he was killed in action while making a visit to the front lines (and not the only general of the Great War who might have done better to stick to the Chateau).

While his retraining and refit of the Army of Northern Virginia as a fundamentally defensive force indisputably saved lives on a tactical basis and brought precious time on a strategic level, his legacy remains a matter of some dispute given the brevity of his tenure in Command.


The last man to command the Army of Northern Virginia was General Charles P. Summerall, a man who had pulled himself out of an impoverished background, then into the rank of Officer and Gentleman with the help of the Confederate States Artillery, an officer who proved himself one of the outstanding figures of the Confederate War Effort and an indispensable subordinate to those commanders of the ANV who proceeded him - the 'War Horse' of Wade Hampton (for all that most compared him to Stonewall Jackson, given his relatively modest background and sometime career as a teacher) and a larger than life figure to the men in his command. He was, unsurprisingly, the great hero and role-model of Jake Featherston's years as a soldier, the epitome of the ruthless and inspiring military leader.

He would retire to teach at the Citadel in South Carolina (his beloved Alma Mater) and disdained to vote for the Freedom Party; the fact that he had been an inspiration for the youthful Featherston would haunt him till his dying day.

 

[President Mahan]

GENERAL STAFF

Damn that is really good. I wish I wrote it. I am frantically trying to finish an article on the Kingfish before you get to it.

I enjoyed your analysis of the factors effecting the 1920 election. As well as Bguys addition. It will be a big part of the next Lodge Article. I will also add that I view the change of guard as a generational issue. I imagine the Remembrance movement was a youth movement, almost like the Iranian Revolution. A generation who came of age in 1882 who felt the CSA- France and Britain as the source of all their troubles. As a younger generation fought the Great War they were willing to try to give the Socialists a chance. where men of the Remembrance generation like Stephen Douglas Martin still viewed them as a joke.

 

[bguy]

- Firstly because it would be political suicide for any Administration to ask the nation to surrender what has been gained only after hideous losses in the course of a most horrid and terrible War; given that the Socialists are a very young party in their first Administration (without the reserves of Institutional Loyalty that allows Governing Parties to make hard choices and survive at the polls afterwards), it is perhaps unsurprising that they didn't want to try re-inventing the Wheel from the start.

True, but there are a lot of options in between surrendering everything the US gained in the war and the hard-line approach the Socialists actually took towards Canada upon taking power. Alternative options would have included:

1) Grant Canada its independence, conditioned on it being demilitarized, forbidden from concluding alliances with foreign powers (other than the US), and with it having to make major trade concessions to the US;

2) Grant Canada its independence, but require all of the above, plus keep a large US military force stationed in Canada;

3) Don't give Canada its independence yet, but give it a firm timetable for eventually being given its independence once certain benchmarks are met;

4) Grant immediate statehood to some or all of the Canadian provinces;

5) Don't give any of the Canadian provinces statehood yet, but give them a firm timetable for eventually being given statehood once certain benchmarks are met;

6) Keep Canada as a territory, but end martial law within it, and make the occupation authority civilian rather than military;

7) Keep Canada as a territory, and keep the military as the occupation authority, but end the military tribunals;

8) Annex only the sparsely populated western Canadian provinces, and apply one of Option 1-3, 6, or 7 for Ontario.

Any of those 8 options would have represented a move away from Remembrance, and still would have allowed the United States to credibly claim it gained something from the war, but the Socialists didn't go for any of them. Instead they adopted the most hardline policy available: continue the military occupation in full. There were certainly good political reasons for doing so, but it does represent the Socialists basically acquiescing to the Remembrance ideology.

Even the Socialists would probably be cautious about leaving the United States ENTIRELY de-militarised less than a decade after the Great War (especially given the unsettled political situation in the Confederacy and Mexico, both of them nations with cause to bear a Grudge).

Another possibility is the Socialists might see some advantage in continuing a large conscript based US military. As we see in the novels, the Democrats ferociously (and successfully) resist the federal government enacting social welfare legislation. It would be very difficult though for the Democrats to oppose veteran's aid programs when they are advocating for increased military spending. Thus maintaining a large conscript army is a convenient way for the Socialists to get much of their redistribution programs executed. Just enacting something like the G.I. bill and a Veteran's Hospital system would let the Socialists effectively channel billions of dollars into education, housing, and health care programs for millions of low income Americans.


As for the biographies of the leading Confederate generals, they look good, though the Breckinridge described in the article seems a little too moderate to be the same man who would later plot to carry out a military coup. Any insight into what prompted Breckinridge to later join the Sellars conspiracy?

 

[Tiro]

ARMY OF THE SHENANDOAH

GENERAL COMMANDING (Simon B. Buckner Junior - followed by Joseph Wheeler Junior)

In some ways a detached wing of the Army of Northern Virginia, in others a force entire unto itself 'The Shenandoah Stalwarts' ('Slaughter-Men' according to Seventh Army) held the side gate into Virginia against long odds and must be numbered amongst the most incontrovertible reasons the ANV were able to hold on to their gains in Maryland almost until the bitter end - yet though the inglorious, atrocious fighting on the Roanoke Front was held to be a secondary theatre it would prove the harshest possible finishing school for the men who would be the founding cadre of the Tin Hats and the Freedom Party Stalwarts.

Men who had marched into that Valley were notoriously fearless in the face of all suffering - and shameless in their efforts to ensure that suffering was delivered unto others before it befell their own persons; frequently on the losing end of the competition for manpower resources with the Army of Northern Virginian, the Army of the Shenandoah was nonetheless blessed with proximity to the most richly stocked arsenals of the Confederacy and some of the most terrifying defensive choke points in the Confederacy.

Coupled with officers sensible enough to fight on the defensive until the troops under their command (many of them those raw conscripts raised a year early to put down the Red Rebellion) were trained to a degree that compensated for their numerical inferiority but brave enough to make an attempt to break the stalemate once their troops attained the peak of their fighting condition (without being stupid enough to neglect the intelligent employment of local superiority of weaponry over the US Army - 7th Army being a sideshow venue, it boasted quantity but not diversity of material), The Army of the Shenandoah would win the only inarguable CS Victory in the latter years of the War - had its methods been given time to be disseminated throughout the Confederate Army, the South's unenviable strategic situation (and the fact that very few Theatres would allow the CS to achieve even local superiority in weaponry) would still have doomed it to be defeated in the Great War … but the United States would have lost more and gained less in the process.


General Simon Bolivar Buckner Junior (later called 'the Headmaster of Massacres' but at the time usually known as 'Brick Wall' Buckner) was the youngest General in the Confederate Army of the Great War - handed command at Roanoke during the scramble to plug the gap in the defences of the Old Dominion before the Seventh Army roared through it without so much as a corporal's guard from the Army of Northern Virginia being in place to stop it, then promoted from major to general when those 'Schoolboys of the Shenandoah' were not only able to bring Tasker Bliss' offensive to a grinding halt but keep him locked in the stalemate which his efforts to break through would win him nothing but infamy as 'Bloodbath' Bliss.

It must be said that young Buckner's successes in this respect (especially in engineering the famous counter-attack which almost uniquely concluded Confederate operations in a theatre of the Great War with an unqualified triumph) were made possible by extensive assistance and advice from the far more senior General Summerall but this in now way diminishes his achievements - Summerall was considered far too essential a constituent part of the Army of Northern Virginia to anything more than detached service to be permitted and therefore spent very little time In-Theatre.

It was General Buckner who mustered, motivated and mentored his troops - teaching others the lessons he himself had learned from his Executive Officer and applying them to lethal effect; in the aftermath of the Great War Buckner's successes were recognised and as a result he would become a crucial instructor at the Military Schools of the Confederacy, one of the most pivotal subordinates who made it possible for JEB Stuart to reshape the Confederate Army into a force capable of punching above its weight to a stunningly disproportionate degree.

He would also become a key field commander in the Second Great War, the man who helped make possible the Army of Kentucky's bisection of the United States and (at the head of The Army of Northern Virginia) the commander who would take such a brutal toll on McArthur's attempts to simply march into the Confederate Capitol.


Taking command of the Army of the Shenandoah after it was reduced to a holding force when two-thirds of its strength and its masterful young general were called away to serve under Summerall in the Army of Northern Virginia after their complete success, Joseph Wheeler Junior (already nursing the ailments that would force early retirement upon him) would have little further impact on the course of the Great War than that which he had already made as a soldier of immense activity.

Equally, if not more important to the success of the Army had been his spinster sister Annie 'The Angel of Roanoke' who had done so much for the sick and injured men produced by the unholy conditions inflicted on those that fought there; between the two of them they had done much that had kept more of their own officers and men alive than the Enemy.

Great Captains cannot be said to have done more for their men.

 

[rob2001]

Are you going to give us the same information on the U.S. Armies when you're done with the Confederate Armies?

 

[Tiro]

Any of those 8 options would have represented a move away from Remembrance, and still would have allowed the United States to credibly claim it gained something from the war, but the Socialists didn't go for any of them. Instead they adopted the most hardline policy available: continue the military occupation in full. There were certainly good political reasons for doing so, but it does represent the Socialists basically acquiescing to the Remembrance ideology.

Given that the Socialists have been carried into office by the generation shaped by Remembrance Ideology I would not be surprised if they were obliged to recognise elements of that school of thought being grafted on to their own ideology would be the price of retaining widespread Popular Support (and I would be ASTONISHED if this philosophical disconnect did not breed enormous disagreement amongst the Party Ideologues as they tried to hammer together a consistent belief system out of these disparate elements).


Now I would like to salute you for putting together such a comprehensive list of sensible alternative options for the treatment of Occupied Canada and also point out that it is quite incredibly unlikely that even a single member of the Socialist Party had given the subject so much thought - given their nature as the party that utterly opposes Military Adventurism, as well as Imperialism.

It is therefore somewhat unsurprising that any systematic approach to the Occupation of the Great White North went out of the Powell House when the Socialists acquired the keys to it; I'd guess that it would take YEARS for the Socialists to come to terms with the fact that they were now at the head of an Occupying Power, much less begin to work out their Policy towards Canada (one could even argue that for all their inherent Internationalism, Socialist Administrations have tended to focus on their Domestic Agenda at the cost of leaving Foreign Affairs in the margins - with varying degrees of catastrophe as a result).

Hence their retention of the basic boots-on-the-ground approach as the only alternative to the equally simplistic drop-it-like-a-great-white-elephant.


It should also be noted that even Socialists are likely to nourish a grudge against the Canadians (for causing such disproportionate havoc on the American War effort along with all those casualties), not least for the Tories continuing loyalty to the very incarnation of Imperialism; I'd guess that the Canadian Uprising came as a very nasty shock to the Socialists (as the first crisis of their Administration), which might well have left them less than charitably disposed to this subject people.

Another possibility is the Socialists might see some advantage in continuing a large conscript based US military.

A very cogent and excellent point!

Any insight into what prompted Breckinridge to later join the Sellars conspiracy?

At a guess lingering fears of being made a scapegoat by the Administration for the defeat of the Confederate States, exacerbated beyond reason by the lingering traumas of Kentucky's loss (his fatherland, remember) and the implosion of his second cousin Cabell in the wake of that defeat - more particularly in the wake of those ugly rumours that Kentucky was lost to the Confederacy because Joseph Cabell Breckinridge Junior was just as inclined to fight for the United States as his father had been during the War of Secession.

Given that it was Chief of Staff Breckinridge who had promoted his cousin to command The Army of Kentucky at an unusually young age (partly due to the young man's genuine talent and partly as a political action made necessary by a large Kentucky minority being tempted to place commercial interests before the Confederacy - a Breckinridge at the head of it being a major boost to the popularity of the War Effort in the Bluegrass Country), it is perhaps unsurprising if he were gripped with the fear that the knives were out for him as well.

Therefore I imagine that his reasons for buying into the Sellars Coup were a product of personal fears, rather than political principle - hence his willingness to be persuaded to simply drop his support for the now-stillborn Coup.

Does that suit the facts as we understand them?

 

[Tiro]

Damn that is really good. I wish I wrote it. I am frantically trying to finish an article on the Kingfish before you get to it.

Thank you very kindly and have no fear Mister President Mahan - I have no intentions at present of doing a Huey Long article.

I enjoyed your analysis of the factors effecting the 1920 election. As well as Bguys addition. It will be a big part of the next Lodge Article.

Thank you very kindly for a spectacular compliment! (I'm so dazzled by that spectacle that I actually have to put on sunglasses).

As a younger generation fought the Great War they were willing to try to give the Socialists a chance. where men of the Remembrance generation like Stephen Douglas Martin still viewed them as a joke.

As noted above I believe that it was the degree to which those new Socialist voters shaped the Party, as well as the degree to which they were shaped BY the Socialist Party which drove a lot of the decision-making between the Great Wars (hence the repressive approach to Canada in the early years, cemented by the Uprising - hence the liberal approach to the Confederacy in the later years of the Socialist Era, following two decades of peace between those Nations - the former a product of Socialists more practiced in Remembrance, the latter a product of a Generation increasingly inclined to favour Peace over War).

 

[Tiro]

Are you going to give us the same information on the U.S. Armies when you're done with the Confederate Armies?

Thank you for your interest 2001, but I'm afraid that I shall have to plead a deliberate policy of promising nothing so that I can never be accused of failing to deliver!

 

[rob2001]

Thank you for your interest 2001, but I'm afraid that I shall have to plead a deliberate policy of promising nothing so that I can never be accused of failing to deliver!

That's okay, I was just curious. I mean, the only U.S. Armies from the Great War, that we know anything about are the 1st army under Custer, and the 2nd army under Pershing.

 

[Tiro]

Not a problem, my dear fellow-poster; I was in fact considering such a series, but we'll have to see if anything useful comes of that.

Given that it was Chief of Staff Breckinridge who had promoted his cousin to command The Army of Kentucky at an unusually young age (partly due to the young man's genuine talent and partly as a political action made necessary by a large Kentucky minority being tempted to place commercial interests before the Confederacy - a Breckinridge at the head of it being a major boost to the popularity of the War Effort in the Bluegrass Country), it is perhaps unsurprising if he were gripped with the fear that the knives were out for him as well.

By the way, I have changed my mind concerning a significant detail in the passage above; the Joseph Cabell Breckinridge who lost Kentucky WAS in fact the Father and not the son - my new take on things is that he was permitted to serve as a volunteer during the Second Mexican War (probably with some sort of 'Scallowag Squadron' of ex-Union men who decided to stay with their State, although they are quite likely to have been posted somewhere other than Kentucky) and managed to make a new life for himself as a soldier in the Confederate Army based on some act of utter fearlessness in the course of that conflict.

He would probably have been the oldest Confederate General during the Great War (probably because he was quietly discouraged from pursuing any other profession and still desperate to keep proving his loyalty to the CSA), but was still tapped by his cousin as a political necessity (a means of showing that Kentucky's loyalty to the Confederacy could now be taken for granted and lending the Family Name to glorify the state's War Effort) and STILL imploded in the wake of the loss of the Bluegrass State.


His son (Junior) is now 'The Radical Admiral' - a navy man raised in Virginia who played a crucial role in keeping the Gulf of Mexico a Confederate Lake during the Great War but found himself disenchanted with the Confederate Establishment even before the War (seeing your father pilloried for a few years of soldiering in an unfashionable uniform despite decades of loyal service since) and entirely in opposition to the revanchist movement epitomised by the Freedom Party.

He might well have been the last VP Candidate put forward by the Radical Liberal party in '39 (having retired following an attempt on the part of Featherston to make use of his services, given that he'd been a key figure in the post-War CS Navy - and the fact that the Confederate Navy didn't boast many admirals to start with, having been a clear second best compared with the Army).

He certainly decided to depart for Brazil, following the purge of Radical Liberals in Louisiana and might very well have offered his services to the United States in the wake of the Great Reunification War (although whether they would have been ACCEPTED is an interesting question).


By the way, it has occurred to me that the Confederate States Navy might well be a traditional recruiting ground for Radical Liberals - given its nature as a Confederate Institution rather marginalised by the Whig Party, like New Money types or the Free Coloured population of Louisiana or the Hispanic Population (at least the Radical Liberals might be more popular with the Navy than with Soldiers, although that isn't saying much - at least before the Great War).