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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Amerika – WA
1879-1912 The United States of
America finds itself in a somewhat peculiar position from early 1879. After
several years of hard fighting, a situation has emerged where its territory is
presided over by two different administrations that don’t acknowledge the
other as legitimate. Thus, while both lay claim to being the United States of
America government, none of them is able to actually enforce that claim. Having fought to do
so, and suffered some 1,2 million deaths in the process (800.000 in the east
(having fought both the British, the Confederacy and the western USA), 400.000
in the west), both parties settle down to lick their wounds. In the Unionist USA
(hereafter West America or WA), the last two years of Samuel B. Tildens
presidency concentrate mainly on providing relief for the devastated regions in
Pennsylvania and the small parts of New York that remain under its control –
mainly New York City, the lower Hudson valley and bits and pieces of southern
New York along the Pennsylvania border. Though some fighting has also taken part
in western Michigan around Detroit, that region is rather smaller and thus needs
less aid. To facilitate reconstruction, federal subsidies and loans are offered,
and to finance these, the income tax introduced during the war is prolonged,
among others also to pay off the national debt incurred. While the rebuilding
takes place, immigration – broken off during the war – takes on torrential
proportions as soon as hostilities end. Bypassing the CSA and American USA
(hereafter East America or EA), these offset the population losses suffered
during Grants War, even though thousands of Americans choose to go abroad rather
than live under a German-dominated country. For many in the Ohio Vally, it is
merely a question of crossing the Ohio and settling in those of the old
plantations that are now being wound down as theirs slaves flee north and
British pressure to abolish slavery intensifies. Others go to the EA, where
exile state administrations quickly spring up and provide the electoral votes
for president Grants coming re-elections. Most prominent among the exiles is
Grants VP 1881-93, and president 1893-97, James Garfield of Ohio. In WA, the election
of 1880 sees the re-election of Samuel B. Tilden against fragmented American and
Democratic opposition. To curry favour with the German vote, Carl Schurz is
taken on as vice president. Come June, the WA
suffers its first setback, though. Charles J. Guiteau, a lawyer with a history
of mental illness, shoots the president, who lingers on for another 3 months
before succumbing to his wounds. Before the shockwaves can be weathered, a
conspiracy involving a number of members of the Grand Army of the Republic
(GAR), an American-affiliated veterans outfit, seeks to decapitate the Western
government in preparation for a general rising. While Secretary of State Blaine
is killed, and the secretary of War wounded, vice president Schurz is saved from
an assassins bullets not only by his bad aiming (two bullets miss their target),
but also by a large metal button in his coat, that deflects another bullet
before the assassin can be overpowered. The months that
follow not only see a crackdown on the GAR and the American party, as their organizations
are torn up, but also the laying of the foundation of the order to come. As the
appointment of a new Supreme Court has been postponed until the matter of Grants
War could be sorted out, it is now packed with justices to the liking of the
vice president, who takes over the day-to-day affairs of state as the president
lies dying, only able to sign off on what Shurz does. By the time the
president dies in September, the supreme court has handed down a ruling that the
clause in the constitution barring people not naturally born from being elected
president only really applies to that very situation. A vice president not
naturally born in the USA is thus able to succeed the president. This proves to be a
singularly good decision, giving the WA the most revered president in its
history. Following the passing of the 14th amendment in 1883 removing the demand
for natural birth in the union for presidential candidates, Schurz is re-elected
in 1884, and again in 1888, making for a 12-year Schurz administration that is
later viewed as somewhat of a Golden Age, as the union takes in millions of
immigrants and develops economically, socially and – most importantly -
peacefully. To facilitate the
latter, a series of agreements with the neighboring powers are made to delineate
borders and settle issues, if even at the cost of some territorial concessions.
In the west, the
independence of Deseret is recognized – both because the two declarations of
independence have promised further Mormon unrest if the state is subdued, but
also to create a buffer against the Pacific provinces of the EA. 1881 sees the
regulation of CS-WA relations, foremost of them the problems of Kanawha, the St.
Louis region and New Mexico. The former state has been in somewhat of a limbo
since it called in confederate troops in 1876 to protect it against Western
advances through Pennsylvania. Since then, joint patrols of Confederate troops
and state militia have guarded the state borders. A like situation, only
reverses, has been the case in the St. Louis region, where a rebellion by the
locals and following invasion of Illinois militia left the region under WA
control. In the end, a
solution is ironed out in 1881, when it is decided to let the populations decide
upon their fate in county-by-county plebiscites. Based on the results, a
committee comprising members from Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and
Switzerland is to draw the future line that the border will follow. The only
exceptions to this rule are the northernmost four counties of Kanawha, jutting
north into WA as they are, and thus creating somewhat of a strategic and infrastructure
problem should they go south. Thus, they are transferred immediately to WA
control. Without much
surprise, the plebiscites return solid majorities for staying with the power in
control, with only a few counties reverting to the WA in Kanawha, and the the
Confederacy in Missouri. As a result, they join, respectively, the Confederacy
as the state of Kanawha in 1883 (it takes some negotiation to convince Virginia
and Maryland not to reclaim their old territories), and WA as the state of
Schurz (in honor of former St. Louis resident and current WA president) in 1881.
The only problem
remaining is the territory of New Mexico. US troops evacuated it when the Second
Civil War (or Grants War) broke out, and at the moment it really just is a
barren, dry wasteland populated mostly by Mexicans and Indians. Add in that the
only thing connecting it with the WA is a comparatively narrow strip of
territory in between Deseret and the Confederacy, and that the CSA would really
like to add it to its territory, and you soon have the basis for an agreement.
As it is finally drawn up, it is simply a trade of territory, with the New
Mexico territory of the WA being exchanged for the Indian territory of the
Confederacy. With the mutual recognition of both parties (the confederate
recognition of the WA as the rightful heir to the USA), the treaty outlining it
all is finally rounded off. Both parties actually think they made a good deal.
And while the EA might not agree, they are 1500 miles and hundreds of thousands
of casualties removed from being able to do anything about it. For shows sake,
Schurz also signs a peace treaty with Great Britain. Given that it was Grant
that started the war, and that Great Britain wisely has refrained from engaging
in fighting with the WA forces, there really isn't much animosity between the
two parties. In exchange for WA assumption of responsibility for US debt to
Great Britain (the EA refuses to), also Great Britain recognizes her as the sole
legal heir to the USA. With German and Austrian recognition already extended in
1876, the most important powers have thus been won over. This changes somewhat
when, in 1884, a French change of government brings about the retraction of
French recognition, that is instead extended to EA. The strong
anti-German feelings here expressed still run deep in France following the
defeat at the hands of Germany 1870, and are thus extended across the Atlantic.
Another unfortunate victim is the so-called ”Statue of Liberty”, a project
to place an enormous statue at the New York harbor entrance. Funding, that is to
be paid voluntarily by the people of France and the USA, is severely undercut
both by French refusal to pay for such a landmark in a German country and a
rabid campaign by Joseph Pulitzer against the planned WA financing of the
foundation. The fact that both Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and his mother - the
sculptor of and model for the statue, respectively – are refugees from
German-occupied Alsace doesn't help much, either: they both refuse to have
anything to do with the project. In the end the project is killed when France
retracts its recognition of WA, and instead extends it to EA. The statue ends up
where Bartholdis original idea had it: at the Suez Canal, acting as a light
tower. In compensation,
president Schurz orders a monument from another French architect connected with
the building of the statue, who is rather more willing to work for the WA. This
time, the monument is to be financed solely by WA means, and to show off the
impressive industrial achievements of the WA. Named after the president, and
built by Gustave Eiffel, the Schurz Turm (witty minds rename it the ”Sturz
Turm” or ”Dive tower” after the numerous people who commit suicide by
jumping from it) is placed at the southern end of Manhattan, and soon becomes
the symbol of New York and, indeed, the WA. Domestically, the
repeal of the 13th Amendment insures the spread of the reform movement from
Chicago, and the following years see a major reform of the civil service with
the Schurz Civil Service Reform Act, that does away with the spoils system. It
also sees anti-trust legislation and the beginnings of a system of social
security built upon insurance paid for by the employers and employees alike. In the western WE,
the issue of the Indian problem is settled in 1882 with the final establishment
of several large reservations for the tribes, that they are to hold in
perpetuity, unless they freely decide to cede territory and be recompensed
accordingly. These are to be kept as territories under the WA, but are free to
apply for statehood if they should so choose. Around them, the
state of Colorado is accepted in 1881, Bismarck, Wyoming and Montana in 1889,
and settlers flood in to populate them. Thanks to the Immigration Act of 1885,
setting quotas for the different countries, those flooding in are primarily from
the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Russia and Ireland. Those turned
away instead find new homes in the CSA and EA (mostly those from the remainder
of Great Britain as well as a smattering of other peoples), the British colonies
(again, mostly from Great Britain) or South America (Italians, Spaniards, French
and the like). There is a brief
war-scare in 1886, when EA-WA tension briefly increases over the crackdown on
American elements following the Haymarket bombing. As it turns out, the Anglo
mayor of Chicago and the city administration provoked the bombing during a
general strike, planning to use the ensuing crackdown on particularly German
immigrants. When news first breaks of the methods used by the American
underground, a veritable witch-hunt is launched against them, and most of the Anglo-only
old-boys networks are torn up. When the campaign ends, thousands of Anglo civil
servants have been dismissed, hundreds of politicians dismissed, and the
American movement all but gutted. While the EA briefly
threatens intervention on behalf of the Americans, the eruption of the 2nd Great
War in Europe provide the ailing president Grant with a final chance to gain the
remainder of Canada for the EA, and EA troops are directed against Montreal and
Quebec instead of New York and Chicago. Instead, EA/WA
tensions get a release in the so-called ”Battle
of the Currents”, a technological race that takes on international
undercurrents (no pun intended). Initially working together, the two electric
luminaries Thomas Alva Edison and Nikolae Tesla, an immigrant from
Austria-Hungary have a falling out hen Edison cheats Tesla from an agreed upon
fee of 50.000 $, mocking him for his naiveté at the same time. Soon thereafter
the WA supreme court hands down a ruling taking away credit for the invention of
the telephone from Edison and giving it to German Johann Philipp Reis, making
the former pack his belongings in New Jersey and go to Boston instead in a rage.
There, he begins research into Direct Current in the employ of General Electric.
Meanwhile Tesla,
working with Wistinghausen, experiments with Alternating Current in the WA. With
tensions between EA and WA running high, funds are never far off for both
inventors. In the end, it is not until the 1893 World Exposition in Chicago,
Illinois, where Tesla is able to show off his inventions to a broad audience,
and the decision in the same year to build the Niagara Falls power generation
project using Teslas Alternating Current, that the battle is won. Refusing to
accept defeat, the EA take on
Direct Current as the norm for decades to come, finally being replaced in the
1930s, when tempers have died down somewhat. While this battle
takes place, WA troops see a somewhat more martial form of combat. Though
president Schurz successfully steers the WA clear of the war, a corps of
volunteers does go to Europe to fight on the German side after she joins the war
in 1889. Ably lead by Theodore Roosevelt, the corps gets enormous exposure in
the press, and eventually propels its leader into politics as soon as he gets
home again. That be as it may, the war is a prime opportunity that WA industry and agriculture uses to trade extensively with the warring powers and earn hefty profits in the process, much like Germany until she enters the war in 1889. Using the popularity resulting from the economic upturn, and the fact that German-speakers now make up close to half the WA population, president Schurz manages to push through a measure that sees all federal laws and publications published in German as well as English. On the state level, most administrations have already pushed through mandatory German courses in public schools. Following the war,
waves of immigrants, primarily from Russia, Germany, Hungary and Austria (and
among those, a majority of ethnic Germans), add to the WA population and lowers
wages somewhat, to the benefit of industry. At the same time, this wave also
brings in a number of European socialists,
that provide the final impetus for the formation of a genuine WA socialist
party. While it doesn't influence nation-wide politics for the next two
elections, another party takes care of that: the Populists. Initially a
primarily rural party advocating farmer issues, it soon spreads into the
ideological territory of both the Democratic and American parties, pretty much
drawing away both electorates, and at the same time providing a sort of
moderation – at least publicly – that for the first time in 12 years make
the Anglo vote a believable opponent in the 1892 elections. As president Schurz
at the same time decides to step down after 12 years in office, the Union Party
is left without an effective candidate, and end up putting up relatively unknown
Peter Osterhaus. It is a rather bad choice for a party that wants a successful
candidate, and Populist Grover Cleveland is duly elected. ……which pretty
much proves to be a disaster. The disparate elements in his new party have yet
to be welded together, so it proves hard to get initiatives through congress.
Even when he manages to do that, the results are less than happy. When he
manages to lower tariffs, for example, while imported – cheaper – goods
flood in, it also hits WA industry, throwing people into unemployment and
hunger. His employment of federal troops to break a strike of railroad workers
in Chicago also doesn't exactly endear him to the public. In the end, citing
federal intervention in a state matter, Illinois governor Johannes Peter Altgeld
manages a successful push for president Clevelands impeachment. Given that the
impeachment takes place at the very end of Clevelands term, it doesn't make much
of an impact on the presidency as such, but it does propel J. P. Altgeld onto
the national stage. By the time the
election of 1896 comes around, the Union suddenly has two candidates on its
hands: Theodor Roosevelt and J.P. Altgeld. Given Roosevelts somewhat broader
appeal (even the anglos like him), he is eventually chosen as the safe Union
candidate, and is duly elected with a huge majority. Made of a somewhat other
stuff than Carl Schurz, he takes WA unto the world stage rather than continue
the neutralist path. In line with earlier Union policy, he starts out on a
Germanophile policy (since his stint in Germany in the 2nd Great
War, he has been married to a German woman), and signs the Triple
Alliance with Germany and Austria. What he adds to this
is a decided activist element that the old German radicals haven't had in them.
To begin with, he sends the navy on port visits around the world, from
Wilhelmshafen in Germany to St. Lucia in the South African Republik. The last
one immensely annoys Great Britain, that still is trying to isolate the Boer
republics. Thanks to boer occupation of the northern parts of Zululand with St.
Lucia, it is a losing policy, though. Further WA
interventions, mostly alongside German forces, take part in support of president
of the newly established Great Republic of Central America (a voluntary
union of El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua), José Santos Zelaya, against
conservative opposition, and in Geralia (the provinces of Rio Grande do Sul,
Parana and Santa Catarina), where a junta incorporating former Brazilian army
officers Horn, Müller and Schmidt have taken over following an initial royalist
revolt. As a result of these
ventures, Great Britain realigns its relations in the northern Atlantic, ending
in the British recognition of WA as the rightful heir to the USA being
retracted, and instead granted to EA. The realignment is further cemented by the
signing in 1899 of the North Atlantic Pact between EA, Great Britain and the
Confederacy. In response, WA recognizes the independence of all the Boer
Republics (Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek, Niuwe Republiek, Republiek Goosen, Stella
Land and Natal), and signs mutual defence treaties with all of them. Domestically,
president Roosevelt begins the fight against the industrial trusts. While some
have been hampered by having their owners in the EA, they have generally grown
out of all proportions, to the detriment of the economy and the people. As a
result, trust-busting is the phenomenon of the day, and a lot of smaller
corporations are given a break as they see their bigger competitors broken up.
At the same time, the Roosevelt presidency also sees the reform of
the WA military with the Reform Act of 1898, which sees creation of the
Landwehr as an organized, regularized version of the militia. In the end, Roosevelt
is seen as a bit too beliggerent, though, especially in a world that already has
seen three great wars on the North American continent over the last 40 years. At
the same time, 1898 also sees the two first socialist congressmen elected, as
the Socialist Party begins making inroads into what has until now been the
traditional Union electorate, sending members to congress from New York and
Michigan. As a result, the Union drops Roosevelt as its kandidate in 1900,
putting up two-term governor of Illinois Johannes Peter Altgeld instead. Fresh
from widely-publicised social and educational reforms in Illinois, he is duly
elected, and re-elected again in 1904. Altgelds two terms
see substantial reforms, among other creating a social security system much on
the German pattern with employers and employees paying for insurance against
unemployment and sickness. The campaign of trust-busting is continued, also, and
the Altgeld administration also see through substantial reforms protecting the
workers, especially the employment of children as workers is sharply regulated.
Even while relieving some of the pressure upon the workers, the reforms
substantially fail to draw away support for the socialists, though. Instead, it proves to
be a good way of siphoning off support for the anti-German Populists, who lose
even more ground following the 1904 GAR arson attack on the ”General
Slocum”. The attack, killing some 1030 German children and women on a Sunday
school summer outing, provokes a national outrage and a new crackdown on
American elements, that tears up the Populist organisation in many places.
Adding to the demise of the populists is also that Anglo-German tension in the
general population is slowly beginning to lose appeal in party propaganda after
25 years with democratic German dominance have begun the process of assimilation
of the Anglo elements of the population. Still, president
Altgeld wants to step down, and again the Union party is without a prime
candidate. That is until a certain race occurs…. With domestic issues
pretty much dead and growing tension all around in the world, former
president Theodor Roosevelt, with his experience in foreign affairs,
begins to position himself for a second try at the presidency. It takes an
unprecedented gimmick to get into the headlines and gain so much favor in the
press that he is actually able to pull it off, though. He has spent the last
8 years hunting, campaigning, but has also played around with modern technology,
among others being one of the backers of Gustave A. Weisskopf when he for the
first time conducts a self-propelled flight in a heavier-than-air craft in his
plane No 21 in 1901. Roosevelt even manages to pilot the plane on two occasions
before it crashes, being superceded by other prototypes. Anyway, it is another
machine that brings him back into the presidential race. 1907, the year before
the elections, see the first long-distance car race, from Peking to Paris. Won
by Italian prince Scipio Borghese, the sponsor of the first race – French
newspaper le Matin – looks for a greater challenge. It comes in the form of
the New York-to-Paris race. With six cars starting – three French and
one each WA, German and Italian – the mere audacity to think that any car
could hold out across three continents is enough to create spectacular
publicity. A quarter of a million people turn out to see the start of the race,
and for months it is headline-news. As the French cars drop out one by one, the
Italian one getting farther and farther behind, and the German and WA cars
taking turns to lead, Roosevelts popularity rises and rises. By the time
Roosevelt is declared the winner, public jubilation can take no end. He receives
the Union nomination and is elected president in late 1908. Embarking on his old
activist foreign policy, the defensive treaties with Austria, Germany, Poland
and the Boer republics are renewed, not without some difficulty, as emperor
Franz Ferdinand of Austria has lately had some trouble hiding his loathing for
not only German emperor Wilhelm II, but all protestant Germans in general.
Still, Roosevelt is able to talk him into renewal of the old alliance. Further
strengthening German-WA ties, the WA takes part in the German-financed canal
through Nicaragua being built in competition with the British-Confederate one
through Panama. Roosevelt also takes
up the task of modernizing the military again. Among the new initiatives are the
creation of certain motorized units, as well as the providing of the army and
navy with their own reconnaissance planes. To simplify the problem of spare
parts, initially only Kreisler cars, Stutenbecker trucks and Böing planes are
procured. At the same time, an enormous building program is started for the
navy. This proves to have consequences in the lead-up to the 1912-election. To
pay for his military programs, as well as conservation efforts and other
initiatives that spring from his centralizing efforts, Roosevelt has to raise
taxes. With the Populists again devastated by the backlash from a GAR terrorist
attack (the firebombing of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, that kills some 150 Jewish girls and women who work
there), the populist candidate, Thomas A. Marshall, is no real threat. The
candidate of the Socialists, Eugen W. Debs, on the other hand, is drawing away
an increasing number of votes. As with the populists, the GAR unintentionally
manages to secure Roosevelts victory over the socialists, too.
About to hold a
speech to a crowd in Milwaukee during the election campaign in 1912, Roosevelt
is suddenly approached by a man who pulls out a gun, training it on Roosevelts
head. Seized upon by two spectators, the would-be assassin only manages to get
off one shot, that hits the president in the chest, before he is wrestled to the
ground and disarmed. Even that shot fails to achieve its aim, as it has to first
raverse the presidents coat, his 50-page speech folded twice (Roosevelt has
never been a man of few words),and a metal case for his glasses, before it
lodges itself just one centimeter into his chest. In the end, Roosevelt goes on
to conduct a shortened version of his speach before he, weakened by blood-loss
is taken to the hospital. The real repercussions come afterwards. In intensive
interrogation, the would-be assassin reveals who put him up to the deed, and the
following investigation lead to the few still-existing remnants of the old Grand
Army of the Republic. It is only when they hit upon the real backers that the
problems really begin, though: they are British Secret Service and EA Secret
Service agents. Apparently, feeling
squeezed by war in the Balkans and civil war in Norway-Sweden, the British have
thought the threat in their backs needed removal. That
meant Roosevelt had to go. The escalation of
events that follows, slowly turning into the 3rd Great War, is a display of
diplomatic failure. How initial British and EA refusal of any participation was
put to shame by the arrest of their agents in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, how
refusal to allow WA investigation and interrogation in British and EA territory
lead to threats of war, and the resultant broadening of the conflict into
Europe, as emperor Wilhelm of Germany declares he will stand by “Seine
Amerikanische Brüder”. He is, after all, already substantially engaged
against British proxies in the Swedish-Norwegian civil war. As tension in north
America escalates into open warfare, helped along by cross-border raids by
GAR-units, Germany enters the war on the EA side, while Austria initially
chooses to stay on the sidelines. Thinking they see an
opening to punish Germany, Russia and France declare war, threatening Poland
with open warfare if she doesnt let through Russian forces. The result is a mix
of the expected and the unexpected: Poland of course choses to stand by Germany,
but Austria also suddenly makes up its mind to stand by her treaty obligations
towards Germany. Triggered by the entry of Austria, Hungary also soon joins on
the Franco-Russo-British side, while Italy, the remainder of the Balkans nations
and Turkey have enough on their hands with the Great Balkans War going on there.
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