A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN:
THE CONFEDERATION OF THE CAROLINAS
The New Model Carolinian Army parades down Jackson Street in downtown Charlotte, 1936
Without a doubt, the most faithful friend the Union ever saw was the Confederation of the Carolinas. By the 20th century, it was the personal empire of the Gamble Family. Chancellor Adelbert Upjohn "Johnny" Gamble VI ruled with a gentrified fist over the mainland states of North, South, and West Carolina, while massive parties were the rule of the day in the increasingly urbanized East Carolina, formerly know as St. Domingue. Across the seas in Africa, the colonies of Jacksonland, the Carolinian Corridor, and Yonderland proved to the world that the Confederation would respond to jokes and demeaning comments about their nation with a heavy dosage of wanton imperialism, interventionism, and military saber-rattling. Some said that CoCaro and its Chancellor always felt inferior to the Union, and stories abounded of "Joe Steele's cuckhold in Charlotte," but whatever the reason for the Southron nation's constant war-mongering and expansionism, it couldn't be said that it wasn't working. When the time came to join the League of Nations, Johnny Gamble was the first to put pen to paper and sign his nation up. It had already long been a semi-official member of the Fascist Prosperity Sphere, and had officially allied itself to the Union with the 1911 Metropolis Pact, but the new League of Nations promised increased trade revenue and more money coming in, and continued growth of the "Donut" portion of the Destiny Road running through the Confederation. It could be said that CoCaro gained nothing militarily, as anyone foolish enough to war on them would already almost certainly have to go through the Union first. But everyone knew that if the Union went to war, so did Carolina. No one was certain what might happen if Charlotte disobeyed Philadelphia, and no one wanted to find out. By the 1930s, one thing was certain: the Union could snuff Ol' Caroline out like a candle in the wind at the first sign of disloyalty.
When news of the Neutrality Pact's attack came to Charlotte just hours after it occurred, Johnny Gamble called for an emergency session of the House of Citizens.
"My fellow countrymen, Citizens of the House, and to all the peoples of the Free World! Our closest ally, the Republican Union, was attacked by the savage horde of the so-called Neutrality Pact just hours ago. Not far from East Carolina, on the shores of sunny, tropic Cuba, Republican Union Navy Group V was ambushed in port. Many ships have been lost, and many good boys sleep with the fishes, murdered in their prime by Papist dogs. The good people of this most Sovereign Confederation have been called upon by the Union government to join them in a just war of retaliation. However, this will not occur. Rather, we are already at war. Just moments ago, I signed a declaration of war upon all members of the Neutrality Pact. The Confederation does not wait for the Union to call upon us. It does not wait for the League to ask us to fulfill our solemn oaths. The Confederation goes forth of its own accord and strikes down the serpents and villains who lurk in the shadows! Today, at 6 am on a bright and sunny morning of September 12, nineteen-hundred and thirty-six, the Confederation of the Carolinas went to war! Do your part, as we did in 1911! Stand tall and let the world hark the sound of free men's voices! Huzzah!"
The Confederation was at war.
- THE CONFEDERATION OF THE CAROLINAS -
Flag of the Confederation of the Carolinas since the Great World War
Flag of Carolinian Jacksonland
Despite its size, the amount of foreign interventions and wars the Carolinas participated in truly boggles the mind of many historians. Since the illustrious debacle and member-measuring contest with Virginia in the Cuba War of 1826-28, it had fought in the Great American War of 1858-61, constant and never-ending intertribal and ethnic genocides in its African holdings since they were first established in 1870, the Missionary "Interventions" in Corea from throughout the tail-end of the 19th century and well into the 20th, the Great World War of 1911 and the ensuing conflicts in Britain and Germania all the way into the 1920s. The Carolinians Armed Forces was actually very underrated and was one of the most seasoned in all the world at fighting in different climates, and their expertise at jungle warfare would prove to be invaluable to the League of Nations battle plans during Operation Manifest Climax. The Cokies had actually never lost a war since their initial disastrous outing under their idolized Founding Father, Andrew Jackson. Morale was high in 1936 when war once again declared.
The Carolinian Army had never been the most modern, and it was through sheer pluck and guts that they had achieved so many victories in the Great World War, but this was not to continue forever. In 1928, Chancellor Gamble signed the House of Citizens Bill 976, authorizing the Departments of the Army, Navy, and the Aeroforce to spend millions Carolinian greenbacks to modernize the armed forces. From helmets, to uniforms, from backpacks to rifles, from artillery to knives, men worked around the clock in Newport News, the headquarters of the Confederation Military Research Initiative, in designing the new look and gear. In the end, a very Yankee-style uniform was adopted. A brown pot helmet almost identical to the olive drab and navy blue ones of the GAR and ORRA, sat on the soldiers' heads, while medium gray uniforms proved versatile for any region and weather. A khaki set was produced with shorts for desert service in Africa. Cokie manufacturers produced thousands of M-29 General Service Carbines, a clone of the trusty American M-25 General Infantry Rifle, even chambering the same .30-06 clip ammunition Billy Yankee was all-too familiar with. This was deliberate, as it made it easy to buy necessary ammunition in a time of crisis from America. New planes were built, such as the 1932 Mitchum Motors Zed-11 Fighter, produced right there in Newport News and in Africa at a town called McCormick's Crossing. The Zed-11 Fighter was designed as a maneuverable attack dog, while the 1933 Mitchum Motors Alpha-4 Aerobomber was the destroyer of the skies, able to rain death in the form of massive bombs upon its targets from high above the clouds. The Aeroforce's aeroships, the massive steel beasts of the skies, were coming to an end of their era, and most of them were either sold to civilian companies or American paramilitaries or to Mittelafrika. The Navy, while not as outdated by any means due to the country's dependence upon it to retain control of their far-flung holdings, also saw massive expansion. Much of this change was funded by the nationalization of the Vanderburgh Family Mining Company in Jacksonland. One of Carolina's biggest businesses was seized by the government when its patriarch, Jeremiah Vanderburgh, was convicted of tax fraud and all his assets were seized. American jewelry stores would sell Carolinian diamonds and other rare minerals and during Manifest Climax they were advertised with the slogan, "Buy Cokie diamonds! Fund our Southron Allies!"
Anatomy of a Cokie M-29 General Service Carbine, virtually identical to the Colonel Pierce M-25 General Infantry Rifle
Mitchum Alpha-4 bombers were even sold to and utilized by the Union during Manifest Climax, such as this one photographed with Yankee colors somewhere in Oxacre, RU in the late 1930s
Meanwhile, while everything was unfolding back in the Western Hemisphere, Carolinian Africa saw rapid expansion and settlement since the Great War. Some of the original Portuguese colonists were utilized for labor, quickly building up the rail network damaged by the war and years of conflict with the natives. By the 1930s, indigenous Africans from Jacksonland, through the Corridor, and into Yonderland were fully under control of the Carolinian government. In fact, things had gone so well that they offered assistance to the Mittelafrikan Reich in the late 1920s in taming their newly independent nation. It would even be the rather insane Carolinian scientist and geologist Dr. Herman William "Big Bill" Jennings who would first propose the "Congo Sea Project" to the Mittelafrikan government. Jennings wished to flood the Congo basin via an elaborate system of dams and create a "Mittelafrikan Sea." Not only would this supposedly provide a more temperate climate for the Dark Continent and enrich agriculture (as well as eliminate those pesky Congo tribes in a truly Biblical fashion), it would generate enough electricity to make the Reich and the Cokie African colonies energy self-sufficient forever. The Congo Sea Project will be covered in depth in a later chapter. The point is that something very big was about to happen in Africa, with potentially catastrophic results, and it had Cokie fingerprints all over it.
In Asia, Corea was, through extensive missionary efforts over the past lifetime, divided 50-50 between Confucian and traditionalist Coreans against the every-increasing numbers of Protestant and Presbyterian Coreans. While viewed in a more negative light by the Union and Holy Nippon, Carolina's Presbyterians viewed the nation as fully human and Betters of Society, simply living under the repressive jackboot of China. With China is a state of chaos since the Great World War, and with warlords in seemingly every city in the former Qing Empire declaring themselves a living god, spawn of a deity, or whatever was the messianic flavor of the week, this greatly destabilized Corea. The north, especially Pyongyang, was especially receptive to Christianity, while the south remained neutral or bitter about the new way of life and the rampant Cokie military misadventures on their soil. The Pacification of Corea in 1908 kicked the can down the road until 1932, when full on war erupted on the peninsula. The South and the traditionalists were crushed for a final time in 1934 and Carolinian troops helped to set up a "Corean Confederation with Cokie characteristics." An Office of Public Virtue protected the public from subversive propaganda and crime, a House of Citizens legislated laws, while a Chancellor, the newly-elected war hero Kim Hyong-jik, led the country.
Flag of the Confederation of Corea
A portrait of a young Kim Hyong-jik in traditional garb. Upon assuming the Chancellorship, he would adopt Western style suits.
Corean Christian Patriots advance during a winter offensive in 1933
The Confederation of the Carolinas was, at the outbreak of the war against the Neutrality Pact, heading to unprecedented prosperity and prestige. While still technologically behind most great powers and a mere blip on the radar of the Union, they were quickly becoming less a joke and more of a key player on the world stage. Chancellor Gamble was confident in his decisions and was certain victory against the Pact would be easy. However, General of the Army Tim Bacon and Navarch of the Fleet Reginald Smith warned Gamble that, in the words of Bacon:
"We must handle this situation with the utmost care and caution. It has always been the Cokie way to act first with a big stick and throw yourself upon the enemy and beat him to death. However, we have never fought an equal since the Cuba War that took the life of our beloved Eternal Chancellor. The Union has virtually never fought an equal. Joe Steele thinks this will be over in a year or two, but he is mad. This war is going to go on forever. The enemy knows it is fighting for its existence, like a cornered tiger, and it will bite and kick over every square inch of Godforsaken, mosquito-infested, malaria-rich soil. Victory is not impossible, improbable, or even unlikely. The Pact cannot withstand the entire League of Nations acting against it. But it can fight to the death. To the last man, woman, and child. This is going to be a nightmare."
Gamble would ask for Bacon's resignation two days later.