MotF 70: The People's Choice

My submission. From a world where the Constitutional Convention fails and the 13 states become independent republics, with some eventually forming smaller regional unions. North Carolina stubbornly holds on to its independence, although from the middle of the 19th century onwards it is increasingly drawn into the orbit of its much more powerful, industrializing neighbor Virginia. Gradually, North Carolina cedes much of its foreign policy and defense policy to Virginian control, becoming a republic in free association with Virginia--essentially a protectorate, but maintaining full control over internal affairs.

This situation lasts comfortably until 1967, when the oligarchical republics of Georgia and South Carolina, where slavery still exists, explode in an orgy of violence as slave rebels calling themselves Spartacists, inspired by TTL's version of Marxism, revolt against their masters. The Spartacists succeed in taking over the two southernmost republics, leaving North Carolina in a vulnerable position on the frontline between the new Union of Free Workers' Republics and conservative Virginia, the UFWR's sworn enemy. Fearing attack and also feeling pressure from the Virginian government, now in the grip of pro-war reactionaries who want to use North Carolina as launching pad for a war of extermination against the Spartacists, North Carolina's national assembly decides to ask the voters whether the country should formally become part of Virginia, or hold on to its independence in the face of the danger of revolutionary violence surging up from the south...

As the First World War drew to a close in the west, hostilities were still raging hot in the east. The Polish leader Józef Pilsudski and the Ukranian Symon Petlyura combined their forces and began heading eastward to secure their border with Soviet Russia. Initially, their cooperation was seen as an alliance of two equal nations. A declaration was made by the Poles that they would withdraw from the East (occupied eastern areas) as soon as a peace treaty had been reached with the Bolsheviks. However, after they occupied much of Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania, the Polish began to persecute the other nationalities. Ukrainian intelligentsia was systematically followed and assassinated, the same fate was brought upon the Lithuanians and the few Belarusian nationalists. The Great Powers could only gaze upon what was happening with fear. France, on the one hand, supported a strong Poland so that Germany would be boxed in. The British on the other hand wanted a strong Germany on the continent as a countermeasure to the French.

The Poles enacted a referendum in 1922 for the formation of the Intermarium Union to legitimise their actions. It was to be held in ”all territories not part of Core Poland”. To inflate the amount of votes for the union, all Polish troops currently stationed in the territories were given the right to vote. The referendum was available in only two languages, Polish and Lithuanian and this further decreased the votes for independence as most Ukranians and Belarusians did not speak those languages. Harassment by the Polish military stationed outside the voting centres was commonplace. All ballots, after the voter had filled it in, were given to Polish officials at the voting centre which means the voting was not secret. Another reason why the referendum was not seen as fair was that many non-Poles (specifically Ukrainians) voted for Union instead of Independence out of fear for a Russian invasion.

The outcome of the referendum was widely seen as being manipulated. However, no one could supply evidence or commit troops for a new referendum to be held. Thus, the Intermarum Union was born and would come to last for most of the 20th century. A common question asked by many historians today is what would have happened if Pilsudski had failed? What would Europe look like if there was no strong Eastern European state in Poland’s place? Could communism have spread from Russia in the east and Germany in the west to link up in a Communist super state spanning most of Central and Eastern Europe?

(map in next post since it would break the text)

Well, that file was rather large.

Uploaded in 4 parts (one sub-map per part)

Plus, as an added bonus, you get a preview of the rewrite of my TL A King's Choice (Still got a few in novel (and possibly IRL) years to go till I'm at a point where I feel there's enough backlog to start posting).

Compromise is also the only way to describe the Plebiscite over Alsace-Lorraine. Neither France nor Germany was willing to give up their claims to the whole province, and both had agreed to the Plebiscite only because they believed that they could, either through genuine majorities or a well planned cooking of the results, get the result that they wanted. In actuality, what ensued was months of protracted negotiations over the boundaries between districts, the date of the plebiscite, foreign observers and a hundred other major or minor points that saw one side or the other walk out of negotiations 7 times before it was finally organised, and even then only because neither side was willing to risk a war. The province had become an enforced demilitarised zone for the duration of the period prior to the border being fixed, and one that was well enforced given that neither country trusted the other, which did at least remove the option of military pressure to achieve the goals of the opposing governments, but financial and physical coercion took place on a grand scale. The Plebiscite when finally agreed to was a simple France-Germany affair, options for independence or joining other countries having been discounted officially. This did not necessarily mean that the actual ballot papers looked anything like this, particularly as the International Council was allowed only limited access to the goings on. French agents had managed to infiltrate large parts of Lorraine and place the option of joining Luxembourg on the ballot, which it was expected would split the anti-French vote among the Luxembourgish speakers enough to sneak a victory, or simply produce results that would allow them to take the areas in question by counting Luxembourg votes as votes for France. On the other side of the coin joining Switzerland was used in a similar fashion by German Agents in the south of Alsace, and both snuck independence onto the ballot to skew the results this way or that in marginal areas. In terms of democracy, it was an utter farce. In terms of the ‘saving face diplomacy’ that was the current preference in international politics, it was an absolute triumph. As politicians in Paris and Berlin celebrated for the way in which the corruption of the plebiscite on both sides, a situation kept so secret that of course absolutely everyone knew about it in private, managed to mean that peace could be declared while still keeping a reason to demand back any lost/unregained territory at a later date, the difficult business of actually counting the results and drawing the borders was finally underway.

The vote itself would not be the end of the arguments or bickering. With the raw data now processed, complete with the corruptions and fudging created by the various government agents, now both sides began declaring that the previously agreed to district borders were not being respected. The fact that no two maps of the districts agreed exactly exasperated the issue, and there was little trust given the fact that the very close vote in the Luxembourgish community in favour of union with France was viewed as suspicious by both sides, the French believing that their skewing of the results should have produced a larger favourable result, the Germans of the opinion that the Luxembourgish would prefer to stay in Germany. Minor towns and municipalities were argued over as if they were 20,000 square kilometre patches of fertile land, while any resources close to the prospective border were the subjects of bureaucratic and diplomatic battles with paperwork casualties measuring in the thousands. There were few things easily agreed on though, one was that it was clear that Lorraine, including Metz, would be predominately French while Alsace, including Strassburg, would be predominately German, and that both regions would end up divided. Perhaps one of the greatest ironies in the disputes over major settlements such as Schirmeck, Sarrebourg, Thionville and Boulay-Moselle was that due to the fudging of census records on both sides meant that there were districts which had been agreed to because the exaggerations of the number of French people, or of German people, made by official records implied that the desired result would be a certainty. Often it was a situation that both sides found themselves amazed that the other had agreed to such a district, when the simple reason was that the records had been equally exaggerated, and so both believed that the territory would wholly be theirs. When the actual results indicated clear geographic splits in some of these districts, splits that could not be respectfully acted upon in case of extrapolation to other areas, the shouts of fury and accusations of corruption were as much to drown out their own cries of confusion as genuine anger. Only a very few splits of divisions would be agreed to, where the boundary was a near-perfect division of the territory in question, and while both sides officially agreed to the new border, there would be unofficial claims to ‘lost divisions’ floating around for decades afterwards. The division was finally agreed to late in 1922, and saw France gain Metz, Dieuze, Schirmeck, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Thionville and, by the smallest margins possible, Boulay-Moselle, and Sarrebourg. Germany retained virtually the whole of Alsace and about a third of Lorraine, which was created a separate Grand Duchy of Alsace and given to Prince Franz of Bavaria, the third son of the King. Franz was also created ‘Duke of the Palatinate of the Rhine’ which it was considered he was better placed to rule, though the two regions were not formally united at this point. Once again, the border fit the adage ‘a true compromise makes no-one happy’, although it would be decades before it became clear exactly how unhappy either side was.

Click to expand...

And the Map(s)

This is a touch into the potential future, not utopia or even necessarily dystopia, but not necessarily ahh transparent.

Here's my MotF entry . . .

The region of British North Borneo in 1963 was hotly contested between two countries that desired them. The Philippines, which had claims on the region (based on the territory's rule under the Sultans of Sulu), wanted to absorb the former British territory. However, Malaysia desired the region, and had Britain to back them up. The United States, which had supported the Filipinos, continued to press for a referendum, which was always blocked by Westminster (prefering to use a Parliamentary commsion to settle the dispute), until the United Nations agreed with the U.S., and a referendum was set up for 12 August, 1963(with the two countries agreeing to monitor the elections)

From the start, the referendum was beginning to skew in favor of the Philippines, with numerous irregularities observed during the vote. Election officials from both countries, tried to skew census figures (mostly confined to major poulation centers like Rizalia*, Sandakan, and Tawau) in their favor, while all ballots, after the voter had filled it in, were given to (mostly Filipino) officials at the voting centre which means the voting was not secret. The massive influx of Filipinos was mainly due to British North Borneo's closer proximity to Manila than Kuala Lumpur. And it showed. Approximately 56% percent of votes cast, plus a majority of districts) favored union with the Philippines, and despite Malaysian protests, the territory was handed over to the Filipinos on Christmas Day 1963.

*Rizalia = OTL Jesselton/Kota Kinabalu. Jesselton was renamed to its current name during Pres. Ferdinand Marcos's administration in 1969.

First ever entry into one of these contests. Hope it's not too "political" (This isn't anything like what I think is going to happen, just an interesting idea I had while reading Political Chat on this site), but I just like the idea.

The republicans continue their swing to the far-right, to the point that they cease to have a real chance on the national level. With no real competition, the Democrats become incredibly corrupt, to the point that many seats are de-facto hereditary. In the meantime, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact takes control of the electoral college and Puerto Rico becomes a state. A few months before the election, some sew scandal comes out that is just two much for the people to handle, but due to the degree of tribalism that has built up, they're unable to even consider voting Republican. A bunch of congresspeople who quit the Democratic Party in disgust after this disgrace form the Alliance, led by the vice-president. On election day, the Alliance wins most of the popular vote, but at eleventh hour, the state governments of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts pass laws leaving the NPVIC and denying the Alliance the majority of electoral votes. This sends the election to congress, which everybody nearly forgot could happen. The Alliance didn't do nearly as well in Congress as in the Presidential Election, due to not being able to find enough people to run for every seat on such short notice, and the Republicans actually won a respectable number of seats due to vote-splitting (also the only reason they won half the states they did). This leads to more defections from the Democrats to the Alliance. The senate (still overwhelmingly Democratic from the last two elections) elects Malia Obama as vice-president, and the House of Representatives elects Winston Jackson as President after five days of discussion and an agreement between the Republicans and the Alliance.

and the map.

The map. Based off this https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=3339917#post3339917 basemap by Thande.

Map of the Fortnight: Description

Ahmadou Ahidjo dies after leaving office in 1982. Thus he isn't 'pulling strings' behind Paul Biya's back, and Paul Biya's paranoid actions which led to the coup d'etat attempt never occur. This leads to a overall more democratic Cameroon by the late 1980s, with the first major elections happening in 1988. However, a lot of cronyism and corruption lead to many Francophone presidents. In turn French is placed above English in importance, marginalizing the former British Cameroons. The Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, though only one party in a multiparty system, also uses a much more liberal use of rigging and election fraud to keep itself in the race. After a decade of repression and marginalization, the Anglophone parts of Cameroon finally erupt in the 1997 election. The conflict escalates when the Ambazonian rebels decide to sell off the Bakassi region[1] to Nigeria. Cameroon is virulently opposed to this, and after a breakdown of relationships between the two countries lead to Cameroon (eventually) declaring war on Nigeria.


[1] ITTL, Bakassi was returned earlier under a different president.

The timeline for this map sees a rapidly developing European integration after the end of World War II. Rather than being divided into a Soviet and an American sphere of influence, the European nations decide to work together and make their common voice heard in the world. The European Army becomes a reality in 1966, and only five years later a timetable for the introduction of a common currency and a single market was agreed upon. Thanks to European help, further bloodshed could be avoided in the Yugoslavian Civil War of 1978 which saw Slovenia joining the European Alliance. The 80s saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and the admission of Poland, Finland and the Baltic States to the Union, whereas Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were constituent members since the early 50s. Further steps of political cooperation are made with the establishment of European parties and party alliances in the 90's, a process initiated by the merger of the German SPD and the French PS. In 2000, all nations agree to form a common parliament, to be elected by FPTP. The following years, however, are cluttered with arguments about the right electoral system, about boundary review and the emergence of gerrymandering. Indeed, whereas some constituencies have only 100.000 inhabitants, others accommodate more than one million. The escalating conflict about the upcoming parliamentary elections mixes with a very general debate on how far the European integration should go.

Ultimately, in 2004, the first European General Elections were held and marked the beginning of a new federal state since the new Parliament would have constitutionally legitimised competences and also was able to raise taxes for the first time.

5 major parties entered parliament:

The Socialdemocratic Alliance of Europe - a pro-European, anti-nationalist party which has shifted into the political centre recently. The Alliance advocates more rights for the European federal level and seeks to raise taxes on rich, but not on business.

European Conservative Party - also supports the European integration, albeit to a lesser extent than the Social Democrats. They are generally considered to be the party of economic laissez-faire and a small state. They see Europe as one of the remaining superpowers and want to encourage devolution to regions and cities.

Freedom Party - a liberal party with a strong division between its right-wing and left-wing factions. In general, they seek to promote social justice and the equality of opportunities, but are more similar to the Conservatives when it comes to the economy. Two days before the election, they expressed their preference for a Conservative-Liberal coalition.

United Workers' Party - a far left-wing party which split off the Social Democrats in response to their shift towards the centre. They want to include Russia and the formerly Socialist countries into the European Alliance and establish a new economic order in which the state is dominant.

Green Party - Closely cooperating with the Social Democrats, although their emphasis lies on sustainability, environment and social libertarianism. They are prioritising issues such as the decriminalisation of cannabis, legalisation of gay marriage etc. on their agenda. They are, however, rather sceptic of the newly emergent European superstate.

Independents - Of course, some constituencies also return independents to parliament, in most cases (Ireland, Catalonia) nationalists who are antieuropean in their stance.

Results



The result in the very polarised and competitive election was very unclear. Neither of the preferred alliances (Liberal-Conservative or Social Democrat-Green) had won an absolute majority in parliament. All parties excluded to cooperate with the United Workers' Party, and so attempts to form a Social Democrat - Green - Liberal alliance. These negotiations, however, failed, and the European federal government remained vacant for over one year, until new talks resulted in a coalition agreement.