Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
That's no way to talk about Yorkshire...
By this point OTL there were already oil explorations in the Middle East, meaning Germany will almost certainly develop an interest in the region very quickly if they haven't already.
On the question of Suez vs the South and relative British power OTL vs TTL, it's important to remember that British power OTL by 1914 was based on four things:
- Coal exports;
- Dominance of the shipbuilding industry;
- Control of global shipping lanes; and
- The City of London.
That said, TTL the majority of the US's important industrial areas (the Midwest and New England) haven't been damaged by the war (although again, I might be misremembering), the advantages the US economy had OTL (de facto endless energy supply and enormous economies of scale) remain in place and (again, I might be misremembering) the Federal Reserve has been founded as in OTL so the country is getting its financial house in order. So, the fundamentals of US economic strength remain unchanged from OTL. While there obviously would be a reduction of GDP from OTL with the CSA's economy taken out, it might not be all that important.
Chances are that the British will snatch Suez from the French in the conclusion of the CEW. They are unlikely to tolerate the Ottomans beating them to it, or Germans and Italians less likely.
On the other hand, the Nicaragua canal is American-German owned and controlled. The British would have to seize whatever canal the French have been building in Panama.
@KingSweden24, how is that going in Panama ? I don't remember if the French finished the whole damn enterprise ITTL, only that they stubbornly held onto it.
If the UK can get hold of both Suez and Panama at France's expanse as a result of the Central European War, then Point 3 is back in play I think.
On the other hand, the Nicaragua canal is American-German owned and controlled. The British would have to seize whatever canal the French have been building in Panama.
@KingSweden24, how is that going in Panama ? I don't remember if the French finished the whole damn enterprise ITTL, only that they stubbornly held onto it.
If the UK can get hold of both Suez and Panama at France's expanse as a result of the Central European War, then Point 3 is back in play I think.
If they get two canals without spilling a drop of blood that would be the geopolitical coup of the century.
No canal at Panama. French tried but failed. But signs that French Supporters in Colombia headed that way. the question is whether a second Isthmus Canal is financially worth it. I don't expect the Americans will be forcing ludicrous rates at the Nicaragua canal and I don't expect a huge rise in Anglophobia in the American political universe. It isn't as if the Royal Navy forced the US to allow shipping to Savannah after the battle of Hilton Head.
IMO, who controls Suez in 1930 and through the remainder of the 20th century is one of the more significant things I'm looking for the timeline. I know we've gotten a clue that the Nicaraguans will contest the Canal in the 1960s similarly to Nasser in our timeline at Suez (and that will be part of a significant shift in US - LatAm relations)
I think the post-war US would have some sort of anti-migrant groups but more refined. Not the torch bearing bruisers but 'respectable' men in suits who belong to 'civic organizations'. The ones who warn you about which boys and men your daughter should avoid, who steer families to particular properties or jobs based on their name or color. Who make sure the 'right' people get into the right or proper schools. Now money will whiten some of them over time but many migrants will change their names and looks to be more American than American.
The only major industrial center which was severely damaged was OTL Baltimore. Most of the Harrisburg region’s population and industry was, at this point in time, on the left bank of the Susquehanna.
As for the rest, it’s very hard to tell exactly how useful the South was to the development of Northern and Midwestern industry in the US. Certainly it added to the depth of US markets and provided additional demand, but in this era IOTL… it was so vastly poorer than the states which had been on the Union side, its middle class so much smaller, and such a larger fraction of its populace in some form of peonage, that off the cuff I doubt more than a tenth of American aggregate demand came from that quarter of the population.
It wasn’t until the various New Deal programs poured money into Southern productive capacity and the post-war federal government put vast swathes of the new federal bureaucracy and knowledge economy in southern cities like Atlanta that this gap converged somewhat. Even then I’d argue that by the present that gap is still there and much of the South has never undergone the degree of wage compression that has happened in the NE, Midwest, and West Coast.
All this is to say that the absence of the Confederacy affects American raw GDP numbers but I am skeptical that it affects American industrial output or living standards significantly, and the north has apparently seen less anti-immigrant backlash, even including the recent updates, without the unholy alliance of southern white supremacy and northern labor nativism that was such a potent force IOTL.
Agreed, but Harrisburg would have been hit by a *lot* of Artillery even if it never fell. Harrisburg will probably take through the end of the war to recover at least. Baltimore, I completely agree. On the other hand, manufacturing is changing rapidly enough that a clean slate for building factories in might make it a magnet for new industry. You could see Baltimore picking up a part of Aircraft or Automobile manufacturing that it didn't in our world.
As for the comments on the south. 100% agreement. I still think there are going to be local situations (Norwegian/Swedish immigration being uglier to each other) and in general we are getting more racism against Asians and particularly Chinese.
Combining the effects of the GAW and CEW is going to definitely knock some powers out of the Great Power category, It will be interesting to see who rises.
Failed de facto but IIRC they're technically still trying (though no progress has been made in a while IIRC). And while the US normally wouldn't be exorbitant or reclusive with the canal, it is worth noting that it got pretty exclusive during OTL WWII and, added to instability given Nicaragua's involvement in the GAW, access to the Nicaragua Canal would've definitely been reduced during the GAW.
Honestly, you will see that genteel side of nativism- because its been there since the beginning and won't go away.
But there's no reason to suspect that that the more violent and brutish sides wouldn't be prevalent as well. You'd have a lot of poor Anglo-whites returning from the war, only to be competing for jobs with second generation ethnics (and new arrivals) and that will cause friction to say the least. Add into it a generation which had come of age fighting in the trenches having learned violence and ... its not a good combination. The rhetoric of "You went South to fight for your country, all the while it sold its soul to the Catholics/Jews/Italians/Poles/Socialists" kinda writes itself. And then, to make matters worse , the Liberals - the party which embodied many of the views of that class, crapping the bed so hard and giving the US an era of Democratoc domination which is going to further reframe and shape the social fabric and ... yeah.
I also disagree with the idea that this sort of pressure would lead more immigrants to more fully aculturate. It did in OTL because the First Red Scare effectively gave voice and support to nativism during the post-war years. But here the situation is very different indeed.
First, we saw an even greater engagement of First, second and third generation Americans in fighting the war (in what was viewed of course, not assume grand adventure overseas, but a real battle to protect the homeland). There is going to be a very real pride in what their communities not only won, but also sacrificed. And they have the tools and skills to defend it - violently 9f need be.
Second, the Democratic Party has had to grow to rely on the immigrant and Catholic vote even more so in the ATL than OTL and lacks the Solid South. This isn't to say that they have no nativists in their ranks, but they have to tread MUCH more carefully, lest they offend major pillars of their voting base. This is very different than what occurred in OTL under the later Wilson administration and under his successors.
Thirdly, the anti-Immigrant and nativism which does exist (and it most certainly does, as we've proven) is not going to be as easy to link to some patriotic crusade. There was no anti-Germam hysteria during the GAW because: why would their be? There is no First Red Scare, because there is no Bolshevic uprising or Russian Civil War. And without those events, the nativist violence that will exist isn't going to wed itself as easily to policy and federal enforcement.
I WILL agree that for many non-Anglos, there will be a push to present themselves as Americans (how could they not when they fought and bled so much for the country). But this is going to take a different form than what you've described. Likely it will put greater focus on the deeds of the community and its sacrifices during and before the war, on the loyalty of the ethnic community to the country as seen by their engagement with thr American civic system (the military, of course. But also voting. Running for office. Engaging in causes to improve the lives of other Americans). In other words - for these groups, you're likely to see a push for American identity which stresses Civic Engagement and Civic Nationalism, but also Cultural Pluralism (and this will be weaponized in the battle against nativism to paint their foes as the truly UnAmerican ones. Because: you say this same line of reasoning in OTL. Its just that in the Cinqoverse, said views are probably going to be adopted by large segments of a political party - and said party is also becoming the natural party of leadership)
Ehh. Harrisburg was under the gun for a month or two, as far as civilian bombardments go.
And calling it a major industrial center is almost as much of a stretch as calling Cumberland a city.
On the Ottoman empire for up and coming events, Mount Lebanon might go down a rather divergent path.
The civil war in the 1860s was a rather traumatic event for many communities but especially the Maronites who saw themselves as the historical and rightful masters of the region to being slaughtered and displaced only managing to maintain some power because of other great powers intervention for their own game leaving them anxious, extremely bitter and rather divided on how things went down.
You have the Maronite Church which views the restrictions of power and the secularism of the autonomous region as a sin instead of a semi theocratic system which them on the top. Viewing itself as the incarnated will of the Maronite nation that does not just exist in Mount Lebanon but throughout all of the Ottoman empire and across the globe. Some of it's leadership supported a uprising against the treaty that Maronite population shattered by recent events failed to support and tried agitating during the Russo Turkish war of 1877 leading to some sectarian violence.
You have the Maronite elites who on are rather lukewarm about their status, they are not opposed to gaining more autonomy and power but have tried processing on what went wrong and how they are a community can avoid this again upon the rather horrific discovery of what being a weak minority is like. Hence Mount Lebanon became one of the founders of both Ottomanism being a secular citizen of the empire as well as Arab nationalism. This was both due to idealism but as well a strong desire in the community to improve their position. Other ideas including a aligning with the Jewish settlements in Ottoman Palestine as well as more cross confessional alliances, in the 1860 a lot of the other Christians did not really support a Maronite power grab at the expense of everyone else but also suffered as sectarian violence spread.
Given the Ottoman empire managed to avoid being crushed by Russia in their war, France the traditional patron of the Maronites will be having some rough decades seems likely we might have a less hard liner win this timeline as well as the famine once the Ottomans retake this region fully.
That being said, this is the Maronites, you have the Druze who are extremely bitter for what they see as losing their historic dominance of the region, being punished by the Ottoman state for winning a war they did not start against a group that tried to cleanse them from the land and given we have a very conservative and religiously Orthodox Sultan on the Throne them being to fond of him given their rather unorthodox beliefs. They might be one of the more defiant groups to being reincorporated into the Ottoman empire.
The civil war in the 1860s was a rather traumatic event for many communities but especially the Maronites who saw themselves as the historical and rightful masters of the region to being slaughtered and displaced only managing to maintain some power because of other great powers intervention for their own game leaving them anxious, extremely bitter and rather divided on how things went down.
You have the Maronite Church which views the restrictions of power and the secularism of the autonomous region as a sin instead of a semi theocratic system which them on the top. Viewing itself as the incarnated will of the Maronite nation that does not just exist in Mount Lebanon but throughout all of the Ottoman empire and across the globe. Some of it's leadership supported a uprising against the treaty that Maronite population shattered by recent events failed to support and tried agitating during the Russo Turkish war of 1877 leading to some sectarian violence.
You have the Maronite elites who on are rather lukewarm about their status, they are not opposed to gaining more autonomy and power but have tried processing on what went wrong and how they are a community can avoid this again upon the rather horrific discovery of what being a weak minority is like. Hence Mount Lebanon became one of the founders of both Ottomanism being a secular citizen of the empire as well as Arab nationalism. This was both due to idealism but as well a strong desire in the community to improve their position. Other ideas including a aligning with the Jewish settlements in Ottoman Palestine as well as more cross confessional alliances, in the 1860 a lot of the other Christians did not really support a Maronite power grab at the expense of everyone else but also suffered as sectarian violence spread.
Given the Ottoman empire managed to avoid being crushed by Russia in their war, France the traditional patron of the Maronites will be having some rough decades seems likely we might have a less hard liner win this timeline as well as the famine once the Ottomans retake this region fully.
That being said, this is the Maronites, you have the Druze who are extremely bitter for what they see as losing their historic dominance of the region, being punished by the Ottoman state for winning a war they did not start against a group that tried to cleanse them from the land and given we have a very conservative and religiously Orthodox Sultan on the Throne them being to fond of him given their rather unorthodox beliefs. They might be one of the more defiant groups to being reincorporated into the Ottoman empire.
I do believe that our beloved Swedish King (Long May He Reign) has seemed to indicate that the Ottomans are going to sit the war out, alongside Britain and Russia.
I think in the Congress of Bucharest (one about Serbia and Monaco of all places) Ottoman Empire practically felt betrayed by the both sides, so simply did not join to it.
I’ll have to look him up
Correct me if I’m wrong - oil exploration in the Mideast really took off in the late 1920s OTL, no?
US GDP per capita is at least probably similar if maybe a tad higher, though the war has thrown the trendline off a bit.
Salmon Chase, with some reforms under Blaine and then Hearst, but yes. Centralized rather than the 12 region system of OTL
The “why are the poors at my golf club/private academy” set
I definitely agree with this analysis.
Meaning interest in a Canal there likely remains
Fantastic comment
This is something I’d need to read up on but even in this comment’s context you start to see the contours of 1975-90…
These are the answers you’re looking for - and the reason why the OE is spurning European alliance overtures. They treated them like shit at Frankfurt in 1903 over the question of Crete, and denied them a say in Serbia in 1913. The Porte has little interest in doing anything for people who’ve done little for them in the past twenty years.
As far as I can tell from the story, Harrisburg was under the gun from October 1913 when the Confederates were stopped there until the York Offensive in Late March 1914.Ehh. Harrisburg was under the gun for a month or two, as far as civilian bombardments go.
And calling it a major industrial center is almost as much of a stretch as calling Cumberland a city.