In at the Death...

[Trotsky]

ATLANTA, is the choice, because iit is the most important town of the CSA.

Oh, just like how Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first and second most important cities in Japan?

Again, Morrell's front line is in the suburbs of Atlanta. His armor is pushing to the east of the city, parallel to Sherman's manuever to cut off the railroad lines from the Atlantic. Patton hasn't been able to stop Morrell at all in 1943, and he hasn't had the time to set up a defense-in-depth of the city because Morrell never let up on attacking him after Chattanooga fell. Not that Patton would know how to do that anyway; he's a John Bell Hood, not a Joe Johnston. His methods are always "Attack! Attack! Attack!"

But the bomb isn't ready, and even if it was close to completion Atlanta is falling anyway, and the Army of Northern Virginia is proving incapable of stopping Morrell's relentless push through the South.

I don't think La Folette will Nuke a dying country

I don't think Truman would've nuked a dying country myself, but he did.

 

[David bar Elias]

I think the USA will nuke New Orleans and Charleston myself; both are very important cities in the mindset of the CSA (not to mention very important ports), and Charleston in particular is where the trouble all started back in 1860.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

New Orleans will probably get a pass on hosting an atomic bomb.

Think about it: of all the places in the CSA, New Orleans is the one which tolerates blacks and others the best. Not likely to have as bad an insurgency as other places.

New Orleans, as I love to point out, is also the most important port in N. America. All river trade will go through New Orleans, which now has the proper docks and infrastructure to handle mass shipping. If nuked, the US would need to rebuild all the infrastructure from start in a disaster area where disease and radiation poisoning will run rampant. No, New Orleans is a prize most valuable intact.

However, Charleston or any other major city in Virginia and South Carolina will probably get the axe. For the reasons already posted.

 

[Norbert714]

Semi-new, have mostly read turtledove's stuff, but just finished Phillip K. Dick's "Man in the High Castle", that was pretty funtastic...ummmm, was at B and N the other day, had "Peshawar Laners" in my hand, not enough money... Is that one any good? Read the set of "best AH stories" edited by HT and the first of Newt Gingrich's novels, other than that, I appreciate this site as a resource to make another mindless AH drone...*resistance is futile*...droooool...

 

[Michael E Johnson]

I have to say the most important thing for me is that at the end of In at the Death the CSA remains a seperate nation-defeated,occupied, perhaps even truncated by territory being given to the remaining black people-but still seperate.
I feel this way for 2 main reasons.Firstly folding the CSA back into the USA would defeat the purpose of whats been a really well developed ATL over 11 books.
Secondly if the CSA became a part of the USA again it would mute and mask the enormity of the crimes that they committed in their black Holocaust. Even if they are occupied and split up for years the US should never let it be forgotten that while they didnt do enough to stop the black Holocaust that doesnt come close to the fact that the CSA actually commited the deed.
OTL the "renewal" of Germans involved in the Nazi regime was expedited by the Cold War. In this ATL there doesnt seem to be an existing counterpart.An eventual schism between the US and Germany is a possibility but North America in timeline 191 doesnt deserve this. After facing so much more violence in this tl it seems to deserve the benefits of a Pax Germanica in the 2nd half of the 20th century.

 

[sumwhereinCA]

i highly doubt that the USA will annex the CSA. They might annex part of it and maybe give Cuba its independece and also occupy it. out of curiosty y do people think itll be a USA and German cold war. it could be a USA Japan cold war.

 

[oberdada]

I don't think Truman would've nuked a dying country myself, but he did.

Well there is nothing about a naval invasion into the CSA, things are different.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

I highly doubt that the USA will annex the entire CSA. They might annex parts of it and maybe give Cuba its independence ( or perhaps occupy it?). Out of curiosity, why do people think it'll be a USA and German Cold War. It could be a USA and Japanese Cold War.

Did some minor editing for you, since I guess you were in a hurry.

Granted, it's been a good while and I'm starting to reread the series, but I'm pretty sure that the US politicians (as seen from Laura's view point) have decided that after this war is over, the CSA will cease to be a political entity. Cuba might get independence as it's majority colored people, but the conCSA will be occupied. Texas, for example, won't be made independent as they've already restarted Houston as a signal of what is to come. Occupation is a sure thing, probably in more of the Soviet style of pacification than the OTL US in Germany. However, the states will be seated in Congress (as they were after WW1), even if they are sidelined/gagged/etc.

The idea for a German-US Cold War is mostly because Germany and America are the two greates powers (though no one will guess which is stronger), with Japan a distant fourth/fifth/sixth/etc., and after WW1 they struggled for dominance, each considering allying with their "partner's" former enemy. The Germans made calls to the CSA, and the US was softly approached by the French. However, since Britain couldn't be brought to one side or another as Britain hated both nations and was still a major power, when war came the US and Germany were still allied.

However, as I and a few other people have noted, this isn't as likely after WW2. The Germans aren't just going to sit on France and keep Britain out of Europe, and the US isn't just going to weaken the CSA more. This war is for dominance for the next century. The US plans to move back into the South despite knowing that the occupation will be the worst ever, and Germany will probably dismember France and take enough territory on it's east and west borders that France is forever gone as a power.

The trickier nations in defeat are Mexico, Russia, and Britain. Mexico and Russia will probably get off "lightly" in that rather than an occupation, they both lose territory. Western Russia will either be annexed by Germany, or turned into German puppet states. Mexico will be forced to give up at least Baja California (so the US never has to fight for it again) and possibly other parts, maybe pay an indemnity, and probably be forced to undergo democratic elections.

Britain isn't going to have a fun time after this. Empire? Forget Empire, it'll be lucky if it isn't split in two. Ireland is obvious, and so, it seems, are occupation troops. An atomic explosion over the royal palace or over London aren't too unlikely either. Though someone did point out the possibility that Britain could become the middleman between Germany and the USA.


However, Japan isn't as good a potential for a Cold War opponent. The Japanese dream in this TL is mastery of Asia and hopefully the Pacific, the first being more important than the other. And because Asia is so far away and the other powers have problems closer to home, they generally leave Japan to its doings. But while Japan still has a good surface navy, unless HT shifted some things around Japan is still going to occupy most of it's infant industry trying to hold onto it's empire, will still be militarist influenced, and still be economically poor compared to the US or Germany. Any atomics program, for example, will be a good decade later. And remember how they got caught funding Canadian rebels? The US here has a long memory, and wouldn't be uninclined to return the favor.

Japan might make the rank of top regional power in the same way Germany is for Europe and America is for America, but the multipolarity of the world keeps anyone from being a "true" Superpower.

 

[Trotsky]

Well there is nothing about a naval invasion into the CSA, things are different.

I didn't know a naval invasion was required for consideration in using the bomb. As I recall, the Americans would've deployed the bomb on the Reich had it been ready even after June 6, 1944.

 

[W. T. Sherman]

Does anyone else think a "Cold War" on the same scale as in OTL is unlikely with any powers here?

OTL Cold War had a massive ideological component that is completely absent in Turtledove's timeline. Any US-German rivalry is nothing but old-fashioned power politics, based on national self-interest rather than idelogy. That changes things a lot.

To use an example:
Timeline-191:
"The Germans are getting a foothold in Ecuador!"
"Uhm, so what? it's not like there's anything important there."
OTL:
"The Commies are getting a foothold in Vietnam!"
"STOP! NOW! DOMINO EFFECT!"

Not likely. Neither the US nor Germany need colonies, and both of them know they can't hold the whole world. And I doubt there's anyone who seriously will think the US should go to war with Germany, kill the Kaiser, and install an American-style democracy there.

 

[Trotsky]

The USA and Germany did get into a dispute over backing opposite sides in a Venezuelan civil war in the 1920s, but beyond that I was never one of the people who thought that a cold war between the two powers, or between any two or more powers on the scale and scope of OTL Cold War to be likely.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

Global power struggle, rather than Cold War then.

Hey, I guess lots of people would like this world! Multipolarity with no single global hegemony, a naturally risen leader in each region, yet nations can have influence in other regions.

So what if France or Britain are not one of those leaders?

 

[Fenwick]

I don't see a cold war happening either. The USA is not the hardcore commies that people make them out to be, and Germany has a monarchy but, atleast from characters, is a rather democratic one.

What I can see is maybe a United Nations kind of organization coming about, or even an informal agreement on how to handle future problems between Germany and the US.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

So no one likes my idea of a huge fleet babbling about Tosevites being sighted on radar in 1945?

 

[Thande]

So no one likes my idea of a huge fleet babbling about Tosevites being sighted on radar in 1945?

I was actually hoping for that halfway through American Empire, just to liven up the tedium a bit

 

[oberdada]

I didn't know a naval invasion was required for consideration in using the bomb. As I recall, the Americans would've deployed the bomb on the Reich had it been ready even after June 6, 1944.

I was talking about the plans for an invasion of Japan sceduled for late '45, early '46 ...

Asuming that Germany will already have used a bomb in Europe, before the USA finish theirs, and that Featherston knows exactly what a bomb like that can do and that ther is a Socialist goverment in Washington, it is likely that the USA will give the CSA a chance to surrender.

Featherston is a maniac, but not so much like Hitler OTL.
I don't think he would make the CSA a funeral pile for himself if he knows that there is not the tyniest chance of winning the war.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

I'd disagree. Featherston is an American version of Hitler, pure and simple. Racist, ruthless, a good touch of cunning, and an utter hatred for those that have beaten him in the past. In the last books, he's also becoming slightly insane as Forrest III pointed out, becoming so convinced about things that he is unable to listen to advice from his generals.

No, Featherston will gladly throw the CSA into the fire to beat the damnyankees. Perhaps he'll believe that the CSA only failed because too many cowards were at the front. Perhaps not. But he'll still fight even as he fires over open sights, and especially if he thinks it'll allow him to kill a few more blacks.



Hey, Grimm. Wasn't there a "Race invades" topic on the subject not so long ago? Perhaps you could revive it, or else you could start your own version. Some good posts in the topic included a Featherston "truth" speach announcing the new US-CSA alliance. Another noted point was that while the Canadian resistance tried to get the Race to "liberate" them, the Race didn't because of both the territory and they were so newly arrived they hadn't figured out differences between Tosevites, and how to divide and conquer.

I'm not sure what year they invaded in the topic, and I don't remember what years what happened when in the southern victory TL. Tell me, what's going on in 1945?

 

[Michael E Johnson]

Granted, it's been a good while and I'm starting to reread the series, but I'm pretty sure that the US politicians (as seen from Laura's view point) have decided that after this war is over, the CSA will cease to be a political entity. Cuba might get independence as it's majority colored people, but the conCSA will be occupied. Texas, for example, won't be made independent as they've already restarted Houston as a signal of what is to come. Occupation is a sure thing, probably in more of the Soviet style of pacification than the OTL US in Germany. However, the states will be seated in Congress (as they were after WW1), even if they are sidelined/gagged/etc.

I think its also possible that the US could learn its lesson from Canada and now that it will have nuclear weapons wont have to try and force the CSA back into the USA.The Confederates consider themselves at least as much not a part of the USA as the Canadians do. The CSA should be occupied while its completely demilitarized and de-Freedomfied( a word?) and even truncated between territory for surviving blacks and perhaps some of the border states like Houston , Kentucky, and Northern Virginia will be put back into the USA-with the option of those who want to going into the CSA proper.But I think for future peace in this TL there should be an independent CSA.

 

[joatsimeon@aol.com]

Cuba might get independence as it's majority colored people

-- not any more.

 

[Dean_the_Young]

-- not any more.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned that Featherston can't do the camps in Cuba because there's so much inbreeding between whites, blacks, and natives. Something like in New Orleans, but on a much larger scale. In the Cuba rebels scene, I believe they mention that the blacks and natives both took to the hills when Featherston tried anything.