TL-191: Is there a Featherston victory timeline here?

I have seen maps on Deviantart of the Entente winning the Second Great War, but I have yet to find a timeline about it. I also recall a "Presbyterian Butcher" timeline about Gordon McSweeney taking over the United States as a fanatical Christian dictatorship, but I have not been able to find it again.
 
I also recall a "Presbyterian Butcher" timeline about Gordon McSweeney taking over the United States as a fanatical Christian dictatorship
The Presbyterian Butcher: A History of the Presidency of Gordon McSweeney (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...of-the-presidency-of-gordon-mcsweeney.319250/)
I have seen maps on Deviantart of the Entente winning the Second Great War, but I have yet to find a timeline about it
One of this website's main criticisms of TL191 is that the Confederates did too well in it, so that might be why that timeline has not been made. Plus reading it would entail looking down a bottomless abyss of death and despair.
 
I have seen maps on Deviantart of the Entente winning the Second Great War, but I have yet to find a timeline about it. I also recall a "Presbyterian Butcher" timeline about Gordon McSweeney taking over the United States as a fanatical Christian dictatorship, but I have not been able to find it again.
I'm the original author of the Presbyterian Butcher. Man does that take me back. Before I made that, I did create a single post outline on how the Confederates would win the war and... it got trashed on immediately. You might find different scenarios and different defeats or possibly even stalemates, but probably not a Confederate win, especially a CSA led by Featherston.
 
You might find different scenarios and different defeats or possibly even stalemates, but probably not a Confederate win, especially a CSA led by Featherston.
Maybe a Featherson who received the same treatment of a certain Austrian Fuhrer? :p
I mean you're managing to make post-WWI Austria a threat, I dont doubt you could have made his CSA win in a believable manner
Not telling you to btw, just pointing out your ability as an author, you're pretty great
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
Featherston had won except for attacking the US and not being done with the Destruction .The way for him to have a chance at winning long term is to hold his fire against the US and maybe go South and absorb Mexico.Then if by some miracle the CSA develops superbombs before a placid and stagnant USA circa 1951 who knows-of course Featherston is probably still there in 1951 but suppose its somebody more reasonable ? Of course in the meantime the Freedomites have completed the Destruction which is a hrrible outcome in every way but horrible people do horrible things and its important to consider what would happen if such people win.
 
Must AH always be 100 percent plausible ? That prescription limits what we get and makes AH eventually get boring.
There’s a difference between rigging a scenario so we get a Nazi Victory timeline where German Jews can watch as the Third Reich goes to pieces with a whimper, not a roar, and rigging a scenario so that Dixie Hitler gets to kill EVERYONE (because honestly, I’m not entirely sure Featherston had any end goal higher than killing everybody he didn’t like).
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
There’s a difference between rigging a scenario so we get a Nazi Victory timeline where German Jews can watch as the Third Reich goes to pieces with a whimper, not a roar, and rigging a scenario so that Dixie Hitler gets to kill EVERYONE (because honestly, I’m not entirely sure Featherston had any end goal higher than killing everybody he didn’t like).
He certainly had that goal for black people and for white Confederates who actively opposed him .However I think it less clear what he would have done with a defeated US.The CSA couldnt very well annex the whole thing.He would want pieces of it along the USA/CSA border and he would likely demand Indiana and Ohio and maybe part of Pennsylvania to keep the US physically split in 2. Maybe Utah for the Mormons if possible? Canada back to the Canadians if possible. I think he wanted to destroy and humiliate the USA as it was but I dont think he had plans to genocide all Americans who were mostly white after all.Trying that would probably make most Confederates turn on him and the Freedomites after all.
 
Last edited:
That’s a major reason a ‘Featherston Wins’ timeline is less interesting than a timeline where Dixie Hitler gets stopped before 2GW - Featherston doesn’t really think about the future, long-term; in all honesty THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION in many ways is the most interesting ‘Featherston Wins’ timeline, because that’s what his notion of victory looks like: getting to fight the Great War all over again.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
That’s a major reason a ‘Featherston Wins’ timeline is less interesting than a timeline where Dixie Hitler gets stopped before 2GW - Featherston doesn’t really think about the future, long-term; in all honesty THE VICTORIOUS OPPOSITION in many ways is the most interesting ‘Featherston Wins’ timeline, because that’s what his notion of victory looks like: getting to fight the Great War all over again.
He did that in the sense that the took on a much bigger enemy he wasnt equipped to beat yet.To "his credit" he did try and do it with more of a 'lightning war" that time around.And if he had taken the superbombs more seriously at first and got a head start on them ?
 
He’d almost certainly STILL have lost, because the CSA simply doesn’t have the manpower or material to overwhelm and subdue the United States; my suspicion is that the closest thing to a ‘Featherston Triumphant’ scenario sees North America laid in ashes after a rain of Mutually Assured Destruction from North & South (Which would, of course, require us to accept that the Confederate States could build, rest and proliferate atomic weaponry without the USA smashing them flat before that horrible mass of radioactive weaponry can be forged).
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
He’d almost certainly STILL have lost, because the CSA simply doesn’t have the manpower or material to overwhelm and subdue the United States; my suspicion is that the closest thing to a ‘Featherston Triumphant’ scenario sees North America laid in ashes after a rain of Mutually Assured Destruction from North & South (Which would, of course, require us to accept that the Confederate States could build, rest and proliferate atomic weaponry without the USA smashing them flat before that horrible mass of radioactive weaponry can be forged).
You would think so but the US was very much not wanting to lead a war of destruction against the Freedomites and the CSA until it was attacked and invaded by Featherston.If he had stuck within his borders and bided his time while continuing to build up would the USA have launched a preventative war against him ? Im not sure of that at all -sad to say.
 
That only applies if the United States continues to be absolutely confident it can slap the CSA down - I’m morally certain that a major reason for the Smith Administration’s forbearance in the face of provocation is their keen awareness that the South simply isn’t in the same weight class as the USA; if Featherston gets too threatening before he hits the Big Red Button there’s no guarantee he’ll get the first blow in.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
That only applies if the United States continues to be absolutely confident it can slap the CSA down - I’m morally certain that a major reason for the Smith Administration’s forbearance in the face of provocation is their keen awareness that the South simply isn’t in the same weight class as the USA; if Featherston gets too threatening before he hits the Big Red Button there’s no guarantee he’ll get the first blow in.
Thats true but all he needs is another 7 to 10 years and taking him down becomes much more difficult and damaging for the USA-which is exactly what he wanted.Featherston is the ultimate proponent of if he cant have it nobody can. I wonder if a CSA that had completed the Destruction and perhaps hit the USA with several superbombs would still be considered worthy of re integration after nearly 100 years of independence and 20 plus years of being Freedomite-what a nightmare that would be.,
 
Personally, I thought that the Confederacy would be conquered and annexed by the U. S. at the end of the Great War. The C. S. A./Prussia/Germany expy and U. S. A./France only goes so far. France did not have a claim on all of Germany before 1870, for example. The odds that WW1 even happens in a world in which the C. S. A. won the American Civil War are low. The odds that there would be a Franco-Prussian War that had OTL outcome are low, and the British allying with a slaveholding country are EXTREMELY low. I am not so sure about the French, but the U. S. A. is a WAY bigger market and trading partner than any reasonable C. S. A.
 

MaxGerke01

Banned
Personally, I thought that the Confederacy would be conquered and annexed by the U. S. at the end of the Great War. The C. S. A./Prussia/Germany expy and U. S. A./France only goes so far. France did not have a claim on all of Germany before 1870, for example. The odds that WW1 even happens in a world in which the C. S. A. won the American Civil War are low. The odds that there would be a Franco-Prussian War that had OTL outcome are low, and the British allying with a slaveholding country are EXTREMELY low. I am not so sure about the French, but the U. S. A. is a WAY bigger market and trading partner than any reasonable C. S. A.
Historically speaking I think the British were most interested in seeing a democratic republic who had just so happened to be formed by breaking away from them be at least taken down a peg or two than concerned about allying with a slave owning country.Which is what the alliance with the CSA provided them.Then the first chance it got it and France insisted the CSA manumit their slaves.To me this is one of the more plausible developments in this whole series. Britain and France have their cake and eat it to and earn the undying enmity of the USA.
 
Last edited:
Plausible, if only one ignores the profoundly anti-Slavery tenor of British politics in the mid-to-late 1800s; I'd also like to point out that a conquest of the USA by the Southern Confederacy only works for a story that (like IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES or even Timeline 191 itself) worries less about practical details and more about mood & theme.
 

bguy

Donor
How about this for a possible Featherston wins scenario.

President Sinclair decides to support the Reds in the Russian Civil War. U.S. support enables the Reds to eventually win the conflict and establish the Soviet Union. It also infuriates the German Empire, who really don't want to see a powerful communist state arising on their eastern frontier. The Germans thus seek rapprochement with the United Kingdom (who also have a grudge against the United States and don't like the idea of the Soviet Union.) This in turn leads to the U.S growing closer to the Soviet Union. The Pacific War is thus avoided (Japan won't want to risk fighting the U.S. if it means having to fight the Soviets at the same time), but that leaves Japan feeling hemmed in by both the U.S. and the Soviets and thus interested in aligning with the British and Germans.

Flash forward to 1941. An Anglo-German-Japanese alliance faces off against a U.S.-Soviet alliance. Initially there is no war in Europe. (The U.S. under President Smith isn't willing to support France in launching a revanchist war against Germany, and the French certainly aren't going to attack Germany on their own when doing so means having to simultaneously fight both Germany and Britain). However, regardless of what is happening in Europe, Featherstone still launches Operation Blackbeard. Britain isn't officially allied with the Confederates but seeing the early success of Featherston's offensive, the British decide this is their best chance to liberate Canada and get their revenge on the United States, so they join in the war as well. This leads to the Soviets declaring war on Britain which leads to the Germans and Japanese (and maybe also the Austro-Hungarians and Ottomans if they are still allied with Germany) declaring war on the Soviets and the U.S.

The war ITTL goes very different than the war in the canon storyline as Britain is not really fighting much in Europe and thus is able to send most of its army to Virginia to reinforce the Confederates. The U.S. Navy will likewise be very hard pressed in the Atlantic as it is facing not just an undistracted Royal Navy (which would be bad enough) but also most of the Imperial German Navy.

Thus by the summer of 1942 the U.S. is in dire straights. The U.S. Atlantic Fleet has been driven from the sea, and the Confederates are driving on Pittsburgh from the west, while the British Expeditionary Force has overrun Maryland and is advancing on Philadelphia. Rebellions in both Canada and Utah also rage out of control. (The U.S. needs every soldier it can find to deal with the simultaneous Confederate and British offensives and thus has few troops available to deal with those uprisings.) And the situation in the Pacific looks bleak as well as the U.S. really can't spare any resources for a secondary theater which means there is little to stop the Japanese from seizing the Sandwich Islands.) Nor can the U.S. expect any meaningful help from its Soviet allies (who are fighting for their lives against the Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Ottomans, and Japanese.) In such a situation, President Smith will likely have to seek terms (and knowing Featherston those terms will be very harsh.)
 
Top