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Today in Alternate History

This Day in Alternate History Blog

My Dear Adolph

I was of course fascinated and proud to hear that you have been accepted as a Colonial Administrator in the German Congo, where so many thousands of proud Germans have travelled, ever since we took the Congo from Belgium and added it to the ever-growing Empire of His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm. Your mother wrote to me to inform me of your decision, and while I regret not having you assisting me in our efforts in the Americas, I fully understand and support your decision. Darkest Africa is one of the great untamed lands and you will have your chance to win glory and fame, or die a hero’s death, out amidst the barbarians.

But it is of those barbarians that I wish to speak now. Your father, my brother, was good enough to share with me the details of the boarding school where my sons and indeed yourself were educated, and I cannot think, but that the syllabus required some considerable revision. So much of it, in fact, was at variance with the facts that I seriously considered bringing my sons back to my estate near New Berlin (which once had the unhappy name of Richmond) before they learned bad habits. Our mastery of the American continent comes with a price, and one of those prices is that we do not make mistakes that might lead to the destruction of our livelihoods and the end of our empire. You may reason well, my nephew, but logic is only as good as the information upon which it is based, and in that information, you are sadly lacking. In hopes of solving that problem, I have taken the liberty of writing you this letter, detailing for the first time the truth of what happened when we became involved in the Americas…and how we won them for Germany.

You will know, of course, that the Americans are a strange people. They speak loudly of liberty, to an extent that would disgust the rebels who were put down so well by Molke, or even those who rose in France, but at the same time, they keep slaves. They justify that by reference to the slaves skin colour, a dark colour that some of them dare to claim is the Mark of Ham. The slaves, far from being entirely black, are often brown – the result of white slave-owners forcing their way into black slaves – or even nearly white…but still, they are enslaved. Naturally, this practice provoked opposition from a good many Americans, including John Brown. Brown may have been written out of the established histories, but it is interesting to remember that he was hung by his own people…for holding up a mirror and showing them the truth that lurked behind America’s smile. In America’s south, in particular, those slave-owners did dwell…and when they feared that their beloved institution, their ‘peculiar institution,’ would come to an end, they revolted against their government.

One would think, my dear, that such an action would draw the harshest of responses. If Bavaria decided to try to declare independence, would the Kaiser allow them to leave, or would he send in the army with instructions to terminate this rebellion? But the American President, one Abraham Lincoln, hesitated; instead of decisive action, he hesitated too long…and when he finally decided to try to suppress the enemy through force, he failed. The South should not have been able to survive a long war, but thanks to Lincoln and the incompetent he had chosen as his main commanding officer, it didn’t have to survive a long war. Instead, there was a short year of fighting, which ended in a disastrous battle. Lincoln had lost the war…and, only a few days afterwards, he lost his life.

It will make you smile to know that that single act cost the Union the war. The peace agreement between the Confederate States of America (as the rebels decided to call themselves) and the United States of America was surprisingly simple, indeed, pro-rebel. The CSA had gained it’s independence, fugitive slaves were to be sent back to Dixie (although that was largely honoured in the breech) and indeed, it was quickly recognised by the other main powers of the world. I was a young officer in the army that invaded France, but even I like to think that I sensed the first winds of change blowing across the world. Of course, that could have been the French food we had had for lunch that day…

But let us pause for the moment, to consider the Confederacy. You will have heard it referred to as the land where Cotton is King, and indeed…that was almost all that there was to it. While the CSA did make some investment in factories and shipyards, they simply lacked the capability to build many of them, or even the investment that would have aided them to produce the industrial potential. The CSA was vast, true, but most of it’s economy was geared around the plantations and the slaves…and those who held slaves were not eager to alter the balance of power between themselves and the white rabble, whom many of them considered to be little better than slaves. As slavery expanded, the whites found it harder and harder to gain a chance at a better life, let alone a chance at snatching the leavers of power. They had the vote…and, by the way it was organised, only ten percent of the population really counted for anything.

And yet…they were obscenely proud of their peculiar institution. A year after the war ended, all free Negroes were re-enslaved and it was declared illegal to even think of freeing the slaves, let alone proposing it as a serious compromise. Black men worked in the fields and produced food and cotton, black women worked in the kitchens and whorehouses, in-between producing the next generation of slaves. Did I mention that a breeding wench was worth more than a black man? A man who bought himself a black slave girl could look forward to her producing him any number of slaves in the future. But…really, how many of the white population of the CSA really owned a slave?

The answer wouldn’t surprise you, really. I don’t think that more than twenty percent of the white population were slave-owners, although there were a lot of slaves who were held in common ownership. Slaves did almost everything; a skilled slave was worth much more than an unskilled slave, and, unlike a skilled white man, didn’t have to be paid with more than enough food to live on. But why didn’t they revolt, Franz used to ask me? Well, every slave revolt was brutally crushed, and, by 1900, each and every slave was firmly registered with the local authorities. An entire security network had been created, which was just as easy to use against whites who disliked the status quo as the black slaves. Whites had one other option, however; they could leave the CSA and head north…and they did.

It was at this stage that we got involved.

You may remember that the Spanish had problems in Cuba, big problems. In short, they had a four-sided revolutionary war on their hands…and they really wanted to end it, but they couldn’t bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. The Kaiser stepped in with an offer the Spanish really couldn’t refuse; he would provide the soldiers, if the Spanish agreed to allow the Kreigsmarine use of Cuba as a base. I was a senior officer at the time and sailed with the force that landed in Cuba and, in a series of hard campaigns, crushed the rebels and imposed a German peace on the island. In the five years that followed, Cuba became a German island in all, but name, and our influence in the area was growing. It was soon to become much larger; the CSA was very much on its last legs.

I landed in Charleston with the official role of assistant and whipping boy to the Ambassador, and in an unofficial role, I hesitate to admit, as chief spy. The CSA had long been of interest to us, ever since the Kaiser had promoted his doctrine that Germany would be friendly to all who would be friendly to us…and hang the opinion of the remainder of the world. You know how he sought to ally us with the Turks and their Muslim brethren; he now sought to ally ourselves with the Confederated States. The CSA was stagnant and in serious danger of being destroyed from within; Cotton was no longer King, immigrants were going to the North, and the CSA was virtually bankrupt. Had the USA decided to invade, it is quite possible that they would have been warmly welcomed by everyone, except those at the top, but they chose to remain in their isolation. By the time I had reached Richmond and presented myself to the Ambassador, I had become determined to carry out the Kaiser’s orders and find a way to bring the CSA firmly into our camp.

I wish I could detail everything I did during my three years in Richmond, interspersed with trips across the CSA and a handful of holidays back to Germany, but that would take so much paper that I hesitate to attempt it. Suffice it to say that Richmond is a strange city; in some places, it was a neat as London or Paris – although not, of course, a match for Berlin – and in others, it was a slum right out of Russia. It was there that I saw my first black man…and when I saw him whipped for dropping part of an impossible load, I knew just how the CSA could be weakened. All it would take was time, and time was something we had in abundance. France had been broken, Britain was concerned about Russia and Turkey, and the Russians were worried about the Japanese. Time…

We had long since started a policy of trying to control where the flow of emigrants from Germany went…and so we directed many of them into the CSA, which was almost pathetically grateful. Few of the former Germans stayed long, of course; like the Irish or even the English, they worked out that skilled work commended a much higher rate of pay in the north, but it gave us a surprising amount of pull with the Richmond authorities. It also gave us a line into the under-classes, including the despised and hated…but oh so useful Negroes. Niggers, they called them, forsaking the Roman truth; slaves were, indeed, the beast that thought.

I have heard that your schooling may have included many lies about the Africans who are now part of your domain. The African recognises the white man as his superior. The African is always tribal and will follow a strong leader. The African will be happy to do anything for a man who shows himself to be strong and fearless. The African will enslave himself if treated as a slave, but if shown the slightest trace of respect, or love, will become surly and end up raping white wives and daughters. You may have heard all of that from teachers, but you must take it from me, my lad, that it is nonsense. I saw enough in Richmond to convince me, at least, that the Negro was at least as smart as we are, and furious at his confinement. The masters grew nervous, from time to time, and pressed new indignities upon the slaves, who responded by watching and waiting for a moment of weakness. They waited…

To give the CSA it’s due, they had faced several dozen slave revolts, all of them tiny and uncoordinated. The slaves lacked the ability to send messages over their country to ensure that they all revolted at the same time, allowing the CSA to concentrate its military might against them. I saw that at once, while listening to the white officers and their men – hardly comparable to the French I fought against, really; the French would have eaten them for breakfast – and they knew it too. The problem was that their system was falling apart, and so they grabbed at our immigrants with delight.

It was in a small whorehouse that I met Spartacus.

Even today, I cannot think of him without feeling the trace of awe and astonishment that some of us whisper the Negro has in his heart for us. Spartacus was a slave – every black man and woman in the CSA was a slave – but he was truly a fine man. Tall, handsome in his own fashion, with a face so dark that it was hard to look directly into his eyes, Spartacus would have gone far…if he had been white. As a black man, he had been twice lucky; he had been bought by the household of one Clement James, and he had risen to a post of some considerable influence within the house. Mr James, a distant relative of General Lee, was a misanthrope of the highest degree; he cared nothing for Richmond’s social whirl, and preferred the company of himself and his own thoughts. His sexual requirements were taken care of by a pair of black girls, while his fortune remained firmly in his own hands, rather in those of a grasping wife. Spartacus was his butler…and, unlike so many of his fellow blacks, he could read and write. He had learned much through reading Mr James’ books…and he wanted to be free. I cannot really explain that enough; Spartacus, like so many others, wanted to be free.

But how to do it? Black men were not permitted weapons; it was certain death to be caught with a weapon in his hands. Indeed, whatever the Americans may say about the right to bear arms, the CSA had been slyly taking them out of the arms of their poorer classes, regardless of dangers in the wilder parts of their country from the Indians. Spartacus had been working on building up a network, for Spartacus was lucky in a third respect; he had a pass that permitted him free travel over the entire country. Mr James used Spartacus to represent his business interests, and Spartacus represented his own at the same time, but still…how could they be armed?

It was a match made in heaven.

Richmond claimed to be a godly city, but the truth was that there were dozens of whorehouses in the city…and we met in one of them. While a pair of nubile Nubians (hah) made the bed squeak, we talked in low voices; Spartacus needed arms, we Germans needed to be treated as equals within the CSA, and we could help each other. I need not mention, at this point, that Spartacus knew nothing of the overall plan, or indeed how it would help us in ways not intended by him.

"But why do you care?" He asked, one night. "Why are you helping us?"

I had considered that question, knowing that he would ask it, sooner or later. "We don’t get any respect either," I said, in my persona as a German immigrant. "We don’t get any rights and we don’t even get to escape out of the country. It won’t be long before they enslave us too."

You know, that might even have been true.

Months passed as we worked on our plans. You cannot imagine, even now, just what we found as we dug deeper and deeper into the CSA. The black men and women were everywhere. The War Department, a massive building in Richmond, had a staff of black women who served as typists and lemans for the staff officers, who knew almost everything about their jobs. It took a week before we gained access, but once we convinced the black women that we were on their side – or, more accurately, Spartacus convinced them – we gained a torrent of information from the very heart of Richmond. The CSA hadn’t fought a real war since they had broken free of the USA and it showed; where General Lee had been great, they were lucky to have mere competence. The good officers rarely got promotion, the ones who were well-connected managed to reach high office, while it was hard for them to realise just how bad some of their commanding officers actually were. You will know, from your own service, that the problems of garrisoning a particular area are different from the problems of attacking a defended border, or standing on the defensive with an enemy breathing down your neck. The CSA’s soldiers looked good, but in practice, they had been breeding competence out of their officer class for years.

Slowly, but surely, we drew our plans against them…and slowly, but far more carefully, I drew the plans that would ensure that the outcome was in our favour. We grew more and more paranoid, more and more concerned to protect the secret, but not even the secret police cottoned on. Need I mention that they too had black women working for them? Here’s a free word of advice; if you depend upon someone, don’t make them feel as if their very survival depends upon a whim. If a woman knew that she might be taken at any moment by a brutal sadist, she had every incentive to work to get rid of the sadist…and that is what they did. We made our final preparations, and then, one day…

To the barricades!

We could not, for obvious reasons, inform every last black man and woman in the city about the rising. There would be far too much chance of something going wrong, but, as it happened, the rising went perfectly. The girls in the War Department produced pistols and took the building from the night staff, while mobs ran riot in the streets and trained groups of black soldiers shot down the guards who responded to the crisis. Policemen who were used to beating up helpless ‘boys’ found themselves on the receiving end of heavy firepower – or at least heavier than they had been used to facing – and melted away, while Spartacus himself led the offensive right into the heart of the CSA. Our planning worked almost perfectly, the people who might have rallied the CSA to resist the uprising were caught and in many cases lynched, while false messages were sent out over the telegraphs to the various garrisons, preventing them from coming to the rescue. We knew that they would try to intervene eventually, but we needed to delay them, while we made our position secure…

(The Vice President of the CSA had been on holiday. Needless to say, we took him alive and kept him well out of sight. He would come in handy later.)

And this, you must understand, was happening everywhere. Negroes were rising up everywhere. Armouries were broken into and their weapons seized, black farmhands revolted against their masters, black nannies calmly placed their charges aside and waged war on their parents, war, race war, was spreading everywhere. Oh, we didn’t have it all our own way, but really…that was the point. We wanted bloodshed, plenty of bloodshed, and while we made our own final preparations, we watched as the chaos spread through the country.

How much chaos? Well, nearly half of the country was black, and those blacks were slaves…and most of them didn’t like being slaves. Oh, there were some who were well-treated, and others who hardly ever saw a white man, but most of them hated their masters. We couldn’t reach them all, but the riots we started sparked off other riots and the chaos spread further and further, even including some of the Indian tribes in New Mexico. They didn’t like the Confederates any more than the blacks did – hell, some of them had even been enslaved – and they too pressed their attacks. The Confederates fought back savagely, but their ability to coordinate their forces was lacking.

There is a curious fact about the Confederate States, quite apart from their peculiar institution; if you look at a map, you will see that their most important cities and military bases are on the seacoast. Richmond is near the sea, Charleston is on the coast, New Orleans, Galveston, Houston…all near the sea or on the coast. Many of them, too, were near Cuba…and it was to them that we sent our ships. You’d have to see it to truly understand; we sent a handful of large merchant ships to each of them, packed with the finest soldiers we could send, and took the ports. Within a day of the order being transmitted – the Confederacy had hardly any experience with radios or how they could be used to coordinate a massive army – we had secured all of the cities on the coast and scattered the Negroes. Spartacus himself was captured by me and taken to a secured location, while his forces were scattered and crushed with extreme brutality. The Vice President, remember him, signed a treaty with us; you can probably imagine how that came to be.

"But why?" Spartacus asked, when we met for the final time. "Why have you betrayed us?"

"We wanted an empire to rival that of the British," I told him. It was true; the Kaiser had decreed that we, too, were to have a place in the sun. "The Confederate States of America will now be under German rule."

The remainder of the story does not require long to tell, as I’m sure you’re becoming bored by now. We spent five months securing the remaining cities and breaking the back of the insurgency we had fostered, while shipping in as many German colonists as we could, sharing out land that had once belonged to plantations to them as farms, while stationing a large army in the former CSA. The white population, shaken by the insurgency, found us their protectors and joined us, while the blacks…well, we had to break them and then keep them down. We sent thousands of them fleeing into Mexico, thousands more fleeing north into the United States of America…and thousands were simply killed in the course of crushing the resistance. Spartacus himself was simply shot in the head and buried; he didn’t deserve to be hung.

And of the outside world? The CSA was hated and disliked by almost everyone. Only the USA was in a position to impede us, and by the time they realised what was going on and that we weren’t there for a holiday, it was already too late. In the twenty years that followed our takeover, an invasion in all, but name, we turned the CSA from an abomination in the eyes of the world, to the breadbasket of the Reich. I trust that you will have the same level of success in Africa…and that, one day, your name will be on everyone’s lips.

Yours truly,

Baron Von Schicklgruber, New Berlin, Deutsch America

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