Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond

[EnglishCanuck]

IMHO with Qing being overthrown, China has a pretty slim chance of reestablishing control over East Turkestan aka Xinjiang. In my initial analysis I have definitely underestimated this factor.

For reference, the Qing were overthrown by the leaders of the Anhui Army and other regional warlords who mostly had control in south and central China, establishing a new capital at Nanjing. Beijing was put to the torch in 1865 and the leading Manchu families butchered with many former leaders in the dynasty fleeing north, but with no confirmed member of the royal family the new emperor Zeng Guofan has redirected his forces for pacification of the interior.

In the course of Dungan revolt the entire regions was split into several de-facto independent states (most notably Jakub Beg’s Yettishar eventually controlling all Kashgaria and parts of Dzungaria, but also Taranchi Sulatanate of Ili that was eventually occupied by Russia, Urumqi Sulatanate, Chuguchak rebel state etc.).
Moreover, the only force in the region faithful to central government IOTL that is Manchu troops have very little reason to be willing to reintegrated into China ITTL where Qing Dynasty has been overthrown. IOTL these local Manchu officials tried to ask Russian officials (both local and in St. Petersburg via Beijing) to move the troops into Xinjiang in the name of Qing government to save these officials from rebels. ITTL both Muslim rebels and Taiping government are very grim alternatives for local Manchu so they might be willing to invite Russians in the region permanently in order to reestablish order and save their lives.

IOTL general Kolpakosvsky, Russian commander of Semirechye (bordering Xinjiang) proposed a plan in early 1865 with Russian troops entering large parts of East Turkestan (namely Chuguchak, Kulja and Kashgar region). This plan was denied by Alexander II because he didn’t want to harm their relationship with Qing (though eventually as we know Russia did partially implement it with occupying and trying to annex Kulja region).
But ITTL there is no such thing as Qing government (at least no ruling China proper) and the new government’s claim on Xinjiang is much less valid. Moreover, if I get your hints correctly Russia would meddle is Manchuria anyway which is much more important for any Chinese government than East Turkestan. Thus, Alexander II definitely shouldn’t worry about hurting relations with new government in Beijing and can give Kolpakovsky a green light.

If Russian expedition starts in 1865 or 1866 Manchu are still holding out in Kulja (which was the most important city in North-Western Xinjiang) and Chuguchak. So, while the front is wider than that of OTL 1871 campaign, unlike IOTL there is a substantial local support against Muslim rebels. While Russia doesn’t have a particularly large local force, given 1871 example (and Russian campaigns in Central Asia) I think Russia should be able to defeat local rebels and conquer another major rebel state in Dzungaria Urumqi Sultanate. After that there is only Kumul Khanate left centered around Hami which IOTL stayed loyal to Qing and fought on their side against rebels. ITTL given Qing are overthrown it might chose to switch its allegiance to Russia (or if not this not a particularly large state so it can be conquered easily).

So by late 1860s Russia might more or less completely control of Dzungaria (northern half of Xinjiang). Dealing with Jakub Beg and his Yettishar (by late 1860s fully controlling Kashgaria, southern half of Xinjiang) would definitely take a lot more time and effort though (especially considering his links to Kokand and possible British support).

This is something for me to chew on. There's some good reasons for Russia to want to do this, but some short term reasons they might initially balk. However, I do think the trajectory I have for Russia fits with the idea of them snipping off more of the dying Qing empire before the new dynasty solidifies its control.

I mean to be fair Ural Railway (as pretty much all the private railways in Russia) had a governmental guarantee on return of investment. IOTL this guarantee did eventually trigger as without the completion of Yekaterinburg-Tyumen part (it was completed as a government railway in 1882-1885) the railway was losing money (also because local factory owners had extremely beneficial condition on cargo transportation).
However, this deal was still a reasonable deal for the government: not only such an arrangement was at worst (that is if the railroad did not become profitable as happened IOTL) a private loan with decent terms used to finance a strategically important project.
It also allowed the government to reduce subsidies paid to the owners of Ural factories (IOTL in 1870s yearly subsidies averaged some 12 million rubles compared to 45 million that the Perm-Yekaterinburg railway costed with all its auxiliary branches and 15 million that Yekaterinburg-Tyumen railway costed; the entire governmental budged in 1870s was on average 500-600 million rubles)

So, if ITTL the railways to Asian part of Russia have a higher priority, Russia can encourage private investors to start building railways earlier. It is not free, Russian government is likely to eventually pay back the cost of project, but it doesn’t require governmental spending at the moment.

So, if there is a political will (and it looks like ITTL it may be top priority for Russia) the government can provide a guarantee in the same way it did IOTL but a few years earlier.

Moreover, there was a private investment consortium willing to finance Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan-Yekaterinburg-Tyumen railway given similar guarantee. IOTL the government was reluctant to provide such a guarantee (although IOTL in 1875 it decided to build the railway with governmental money; this project was stopped though because of Russian-Turkish War approaching, as I mentioned in my previous post), but if ITTL Asia has a top priority in late 1860s-1870s, it Alexander’s ministers might be willing do so ITTL.

If this does indeed happen there is really nothing that prevents both Ural Railway and the first section of Siberian railway (Nizhny Novgorod-Kazan-Yekaterinburg-Tyumen) from being built by around 1875. And with the proper link to main Russian railway network both railways are likely to be profitable from the beginning.

The population of Manchuria in the second half of XIX century is a quite contentious topic.
We have the official data of registered settlers for several years, but the academic consensus is that these numbers are highly undercounted. Indeed, the local Han settlers had incentive to avoid being counted even after 1887 when Qing government lifted the last limitation for Chinese settlement in Manchuria (partial removal of limitations was done in 1860, but this was only for certain areas in the Northern Manchuria) since being registered meant being taxed and settler wanted to avoid it.

All the numbers below a given for contemporary province borders (different from modern borders).

The official data for 1862 (from Kang Chao’s Demographic Development of Manchuria):
Manchuria total: 3332 thousand people, Liaoning: 2818 thousand people, Jilin: 329 thousand, Heilongjiang: 185 thousand (there is no data for Heilongjiang in 1862, but it is assumed that the population there grew at the same rate as for Jilin).

But once again these numbers are definitely undervalued, the question is by how much (there are different opinions ranging from something close to official data to Manchuria having over 20 million people in 1890s).
The numbers I personally think are somewhat reasonable (mainly because they correspond well to the numbers in other sources) are inferred form Isett’s total population of Manchuria from his State, Peasant, and Merchant in Qing Manchuria. Here are the numbers for 1862:

Manchuria total: 6770 thousand people, Liaoning: 5724 thousand people, Jilin: 668 thousand, Heilongjiang: 375 thousand

Of those at most 2.5 million are not Han.
IOTL there was 2.5 million of non-Han population in 1910, including 1692 thousand Manchu and 658 thousand Mongols.
Presumably ITTL several hundred thousand Manchu escape from mainland China, but we are some 50 years earlier and should account for natural growth that happened IOTL.

The timetable idea here seems plausible. Russia wouldn't have to invest right away in the building, but could push some work off on private investors with promises of profit later, especially with untapped mineral wealth in the east. This is good to know, I did have an idea that Russia would want to push east for the resources to my thinking isn't a "cart before the horse" plan like I was worried about.

Those population numbers do give me pause for thought, but I have the idea in mind for how its going to blow up too so that is something of a comfort! I figured the region of Manchuria was less populated, but I suppose I should have figured more of Liaoning and Jilin was more populace!

Even if the real numbers are somewhat smaller than the ones above, only the official population of Manchuria is larger than the population of the whole Siberia in 1862 (not counting Steppes District aka Kazakhstan, but there the majority of population is nomadic).
If we take more believable Isett’s number then Manchuria is 1.5 more populous than whole territory of Russia over the Ural Mountains (in 1862 Siberia had 3141 thousand people, Steppes District 1485 and Manchuria 6770).

So overall there is no way in hell Russia would be able to assimilate the whole Manchuria. This doesn’t prevent Russia from being able to conquer and fully control it though (the same way it did with Central Asia or Caucasus).
Moreover, Russia can probably implement divide and conquer policy giving non-Han population substantial privileges and these population groups are large enough for this policy of having a chance to succeed (the same way Russia gave privileges to Caucasus Christians despite those were a minority).

Another factor to consider that the 85% of population (both in total and even more so Han) is concentrated in Liaoning.
Now it is extremely important part of Manchuria, it has an access to Yellow Sea, it has insanely abundant natural resources (most notably coal around Fushun and iron around Anshan allowing Japan to build an industrial giant Showa Steel Works), so it’s not Russia would willingly part with it.
However the government may choose to treat this region differently from the two northern provinces (where there is at most 1 million people and most of those are probably non-Han).
So, Russia may attempt to settle and assimilate two former northern provinces (the same way it did with Northern Caucasus and Northern Kazakhstan) while considering Liaoning as populated by “foreign people” (инородцы in Russian, basically non-Slavs) which of course won’t prevent some Russian settlement there (once again in the same way Tashkent and Chu Valley around Bishkek were settled by Russian-speaking population).

This is an extremely ambitious project of course and only the TL author may answer if Russia would succeed (if it attempts to do it that is).

All wonderful information for me to have in mind!

As mentioned in my post above Russia does not necessarily has to spend governmental money for it at least not immediately. What is has to do is to guarantee the private investors return on their investment (and there were private investors willing to finance both Ural Railway and the first section of Siberian railway in late 1860s provided they had such a guarantee).

Of course, it is still a serious obligation on the government part, but it doesn’t require it to write the check straight away (and as we know it now definitely worth it in the long run).
IOTL the government worried that the railway would never be profitable (which sounds ridiculous for us now), but even if they have the same doubts ITTL they might be more willing to risk it since Russian ambitions in Asia are much stronger (as even if there are doubts about economic value of the railroad, its strategic and military importance is unquestionable)

Well China doesn’t control Xinjiang, it owns it (and some countries such as Ottoman Empire recognized the new states by 1870s). The only part of the region loyal to the government was Kumul Khanate around Hami and I have serious doubts that it would retain loyalty to non-Qing government. Moreover in 1865 there are a few pockets of Manchu resistance in Xinjiang (Kuldja, Chuguchak) and ITTL they really have no one to look for protection other than Russia.

Will Russia act according to Kolpakovsky plan in such a conditions ITTL is another question. I think it would, but there may be factors I don’t see.

I'll definitely be keeping this all in mind! I may reach out more as I think on it, but this is quite a lot of info to digest for me. It's a little more detail than I am normally going to get into outside of North America (though who knows, the scope of the TL may grow) which will make mapping out some future interactions interesting!

Thanks for this!

Sorry, I forgot to answer this part of your message.
You seem to reference Stolypin reforms that arguably came too little too late (but lead to at least 2 million settler arriving to Siberia in 1907-1909 and another million in 1910-1914, compared to a million in the decade prior to 1907 i. e. when the Trans-Siberian was already fully operational).

Now could the social situation in Russia be changed for the better if similar reforms were conducted one or two decades prior is another question.

Yes, my Russia post-1880 up to 1904 is a tad shaky so I'm refamiliarizing myself with the broad sweeps of Russian history. Arguably those were indeed too little too late!

 

[EnglishCanuck]

A very nice overview of the situation. I have a couple of slight quibbles/questions around the terminology above

1) Given that the Confederacy won, would third-party observers still be calling it a civil war, or something along the lines the "Confederate War of Indepence" (or, in this case "the late war between those two countries")

That I was wondering, but I was trying to portray Petrie as someone a bit disdainful of the Confederates (hence their short version) which seemed like a good way to get a bit of a snub in. Though the wording might be better put as "Confederate War of Independence" as the fighting is done by 1866, putting them firmly on settled geopolitical ground. I think I'll change that.

2) Again, post-war, with a Confederate victory, would the term "northern states" in the present tense be used, rather than the past tense? Especially given that there are a few decent-sized chunks of those states (if not their population) that are now Canadian.

Another good catch! I think that northern states could be a present tense (with the United States being something of a "disunited states" now) in that specific context to refer to the former north-south split where he has to get his information from. He's relying on data from the 1860 United States census, which is how he divides his data. In that specific context, but probably wouldn't be used again after 1870 when all the new official data gets published. It was weird thinking about how that might be analyzed after the fact, and as a period piece thought it might be the most clear to readers in 1866,

 

[alexmilman]

These gunboats, steem schooners and steamers are modern fleet that Qing really have nothing to counter.This is comparable to the fleet used by allies during Second Opium War for example and we all know how it ended.
wAlso I don't claim that Russian gunships would go through Tainjing and storm Forbidden Palace. However it is more than enough to interrupt Chinese shipping in the Yellow Sea which would help the possible Russian War effort by a large deal.

If you are talking about the late 1870s then, as I already remarked, IMO, any significant Russian war effort was unrealistic due to the economic and political/geopolitical reasons.

This looks like data from the top Russian Wikipedia article on the population of Russian Empire and it is both is extremly suspicious and has no proper reference.

Yes, the wiki data are unreliable but they show a tendency. And, sorry, the only reason I got into this thread is because my opinion was asked and I’m not going to go into the in-depth research on the subject.

Here is a proper source.
While there is no total population specifically for 1880, there is for 1885 and it is 99 millions without Poland and Finland (and your data for late years include Poland and is once again overblown for 1914, when it was most 175 million without Finland ).

The first census was conducted only in 1897 so any data prior to this can be questioned. The point is that there was a steady growth of population and its rate accelerated by the end of XIX century leading to the land crisis in European. Russia. The issue had been discussed more than once and if you are interested you can find relevant data in some old threads. I’m not going into this again.

You can notice that these numbers match the ones provided in the previous source really well.

You are missing the point. I’m not arguing against usefulness of the railroads, which is quite obvious. The point is that, no matter which sources you are using, the land crisis was a big factor in resettlement process and it was triggered by the high rate of a population growth. In the 1870s there was no, yet, a major land shortage in the European Russia but in the early 1900s situation was close to a crisis.

 

[sarahz]

Now the Americans are humbled I wonder if we will see the British move to replace the Monroe doctrine with something else.
I could see them wanting to work on reducing the influence the other European powers have on the Americas.

It was always the RN that actually enforced it anyway.

 

[DarkAvenger]

It was always the RN that actually enforced it anyway.

Yeah. The funny thing is that the US could not enforce it and relied on the RN to do it. Here, the Doctrine is dead and the RN does not seem willing to further enforce it. I mean, we have France intervening in Mexico and no one is stopping them. I expect there to be similar instances from other powers intervening in the Americas (though not to the extent of France).

 

[RCAF Brat]

Yeah. The funny thing is that the US could not enforce it and relied on the RN to do it. Here, the Doctrine is dead and the RN does not seem willing to further enforce it. I mean, we have France intervening in Mexico and no one is stopping them. I expect there to be similar instances from other powers intervening in the Americas (though not to the extent of France).

Whether or not the British ignore another European power intervening in the affairs of a North or South American state depends greatly on whether the intervention in question has a negative effect on British interests in the region. If it does, then the British will make their displeasure quite clear. (With the go-to example of how far Britain will go in expressing her displeasure being the recent war in North America.) If not, then the intervention will be ignored or even quietly supported.

 

[PaulJones202718]

Given that the British stood idly by while the Hondurans shot Walker, you have to wonder how they're going to react to the Confederacy taking its show on the road.

 

[Pax_Nihil]

Given that the British stood idly by while the Hondurans shot Walker, you have to wonder how they're going to react to the Confederacy taking its show on the road.

The Confederacy is not exactly what a power projecting nation is supposed to be.... its citizens can certainly try to go the Walker route but they will need the money that could possibly help such endeavors to be spent on repairing everything and paying back their debt holders. Perhaps to prevent any mucking around by stupid Confederate citizens who have ideas on interfering with the UK's well-established commercial interests in Central America and the Caribbean, they may potentially offer a reduction of, or threaten to raise the interest rates involved in the loans the Confederacy owes the British to make them police their own citizens better.

 

[PaulJones202718]

The Confederacy is not exactly what a power projecting nation is supposed to be.... its citizens can certainly try to go the Walker route but they will need the money that could possibly help such endeavors to be spent on repairing everything and paying back their debt holders. Perhaps to prevent any mucking around by stupid Confederate citizens who have ideas on interfering with the UK's well-established commercial interests in Central America and the Caribbean, they may potentially offer a reduction of, or threaten to raise the interest rates involved in the loans the Confederacy owes the British to make them police their own citizens better.

Which is something they'd totally do. The CSA will be a horrible place to live for a long time but at least the people running it will have some idea of how little they matter.

 

[naraht]

Which is something they'd totally do. The CSA will be a horrible place to live for a long time but at least the people running it will have some idea of how little they matter.

Wonder if they'd be better off getting loans from the French...

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Whether or not the British ignore another European power intervening in the affairs of a North or South American state depends greatly on whether the intervention in question has a negative effect on British interests in the region. If it does, then the British will make their displeasure quite clear. (With the go-to example of how far Britain will go in expressing her displeasure being the recent war in North America.) If not, then the intervention will be ignored or even quietly supported.

Precisely this. The British in WiF partly went to war because they realized that, as per the power politics of the day, they could not let anyone believe that there might not be no consequences for messing with British interests. With the Monroe Doctrine as "enforced" by the United States a dead letter, they will be the arbiters of what does and does not constitute interference in North and South American affairs. Particularly with respect to Central America and the Caribbean.

OTL they were happy to encourage Napoleon's messing with Mexico because it meant there wouldn't be war in Europe for a time as French blood and treasure was tied down supporting Maximilian. If another European intervention was to their supposed advantage they would allow it.

 

[Nenshou Yuuki]

It will be interesting to see what happens with Central America, with the French gaining influence in Mexico they may try and move further south and gain control of the region, maybe even pushing to reform the Central American Republic to consolidate their power and to try and push out other European influence there. Maybe they'd try for a Nicaraguan Canal ITTL instead of a Panama Canal.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

The Confederacy is not exactly what a power projecting nation is supposed to be.... its citizens can certainly try to go the Walker route but they will need the money that could possibly help such endeavors to be spent on repairing everything and paying back their debt holders. Perhaps to prevent any mucking around by stupid Confederate citizens who have ideas on interfering with the UK's well-established commercial interests in Central America and the Caribbean, they may potentially offer a reduction of, or threaten to raise the interest rates involved in the loans the Confederacy owes the British to make them police their own citizens better.

Which is something they'd totally do. The CSA will be a horrible place to live for a long time but at least the people running it will have some idea of how little they matter.

Compared to OTL the Confederacy is much richer than it was by 1865. The lack of sheer devastation to the South's industry and economic base - no march through Georgia and the fighting largely taking place in Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and to an extent, Mississippi - means that its richer as a whole an undamaged. Minus the, oh, 500,000 population deficit from those killed or fled.

Then, access with the world to trade meant that King Cotton was making money hand over fist for the Confederacy to the point that severe inflation never set in compared to OTL. They have loans to pay to European bankers, but nothing nearly so severe as those even the original United States faced in 1784, and with a much more muscular central government with a proven track record of being willing to trample the states when it means getting results (taxes, conscription, ect). Though how true that remains is what will be defined in the 1867 election.

All that said, there are still expansionist factions within the Confederacy who cast greedy eyes on territory in the Caribbean, from Cuba to Nicaragua. Mexico is now firmly out of their grasp because they want good relations with France, but already - as I hoped to show with the Confederate envoys cavorting with Cuban politicos - there are groups on Cuba would not be opposed to Confederate expansion. Mostly because there's a antebellum style split in island politics. How that will play out yet is to be determined.

In truth though, there's ways for both France and Britain to put the squeeze on the Confederacy through loans, but not so mighty as they might hope. The Confederacy is not as in debt as it might have been had the Union done better. Though the Confederates still depend on European trade, so financial penalties on Confederate exports might be a very good way to censure them.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Wonder if they'd be better off getting loans from the French...

Yes, and no. Look at how well that worked out for poor Mexico! But, France has an interest in propping up the Confederacy at the moment. They are a very convenient buffer state for France to muck around in North America still.

 

[EnglishCanuck]

It will be interesting to see what happens with Central America, with the French gaining influence in Mexico they may try and move further south and gain control of the region, maybe even pushing to reform the Central American Republic to consolidate their power and to try and push out other European influence there. Maybe they'd try for a Nicaraguan Canal ITTL instead of a Panama Canal.

I have some plans for Central America, and the efforts of Europe to influence it are at the top of the "potential problems" list for the last half of the 19th Century and the dawn of the 20th century!

As an aside for readers of the excellent Cinco De Mayo, you can indeed expect something different from how it goes there 😉

(Except when it comes to canals, the canals will always be a problem...)

 

[EnglishCanuck]

And as a complete aside, the world in review chapter is proving an absolute bear to write (seriously, 1866 was already a busy year OTL and I discounted how much change I'd set in motion) so as I hammer down the wave of change I'll be posting the "what if" chapter on WIF where the distinguished writers of TTL try and imagine how the world might have looked otherwise!

 

[EnglishCanuck]

Chapter 127: What If?​

“The history of the 19th Century is replete with points of divergence that could have changed the course of history as we know it. Many ask what if this or that event had not happened. For instance, what if the South had never seceded, would that have stopped the chain of dominos leading to the violent events of the 20th century? Or what if Lincoln had won a second term, would he have managed to resolve the War of Secession[1] to a better conclusion for North America? Could slavery have ended earlier? These are often the questions that writers seek to explore when engaging in alternate history. Though it is an ultimately unknowable answer, writers nonetheless enjoy experimenting with the concept. In this article we will review the better known avenues of the alternate history regarding what historians call the Great American War as it has been envisioned in the past.

It may surprise readers to know that this is an old topic. The first works which could be called “alternate history” today on the subject were actually written in the early 20th century. Henry Adams, who lived through the war, wrote “The World of The United States” in 1900, specifically using “the” United States rather than the more common “these” United States as was the case until the 1960s. That alone set the tone for readers. In the work he imagined a world where war with Britain was never fought and the United States, through material advantages and the political unity of the Republican Party, defeated the Confederacy and imposed an end of slavery on the South by 1864. Though he did not specify how the war was won, merely writing “through her material and military supremacy the United States triumphed” and instead focused on the years leading up to 1900. This different United States abolished slavery in 1864, and in Lincoln’s second term helped bring about a revolution which abolished the institution in Cuba by 1867 and absorbed the island into the United States. A very different outcome than we would be familiar with today!

However, he largely focused on how a whole United States would be a force for good in the world, Imagining no monarchies to its north and south (he briefly alludes to a Canadian Democracy) but also imagines that American pressure would force France from Mexico and keep that republic alive. By 1900 he envisioned all of the Caribbean having thrown off European rule and instead been absorbed into the United States. In South America too he alludes to ‘sister republics’ which are in a quasi alliance with the United States. Europe meanwhile is still ‘trapped in despotism’ but with friendly powers like Russia and Prussia acting as checks on the ‘infernal ambitions’ of France, England and Spain. In a way he did inadvertently predict some aspects of the future but perhaps not in the way he thought.

A counterpoint would be Winston Churchill’s “If There Was a United States” written in 1931’s collection "If It Had Happened Otherwise.” Churchill imagines a world where the United States, winning the war first through canny diplomacy with Britain, exiting that conflict in 1862 with a white peace, and then turning its furious energies on the Confederacy. The war lasts to 1866 with the South “wholly subjugated” by Northern arms, and slavery being abolished by a third term Abraham Lincoln. From there Churchill imagines the United States taking an imperial view of the world, conquering such different places as Cuba, Hawaii, Taiwan and portions of West Africa. The United States becomes a global power, one of the “Three Hegemons” as he calls it, dividing global interests with Britain and Russia who exert vast control over vast swathes of territory that by 1910 are able to push others like France, China and Prussia around to avert wars. Naturally, Churchill envisions the only wars the powers undertake as “police actions” against the Ottomans and Chinese which carve up their empires to create a more stable world order.

Of course, in each of these examples we can see a world viewed through the biases of the authors. For Adams it's his position as one of the leading New Men who looks to burnish the national image of the United States at a time where she was grappling with her place in the world. For Churchill it is imagining a stable global order after the Great War and the uncomfortable realization that non-European powers have a seat at the global table, a point he always argued against with his twin. Modern writers of course are not immune to such biases, but it is interesting to examine how these works are shaped by their predecessors.

The first novel, most well known of course, was 1964’s "Under the Southern Cross" is the story of Jedediah Smith, a Virginian, who inadvertently travels back in time. The world he lives in is one infested with ‘communism’ where the black dominated People’s Confederacy controls the whole of the Southern United States, allied to the West African Peoples Republic and a Communist Iberia which exports “Marxist-Lincolnism” to the peoples of the world, and eventually conquer the United States. Stumbling on a secret project to go back in time and arm a slave uprising with modern weapons, he falls through the time machine, disabling it, and finds himself in 1863, a year before his own having gone exactly 101 years back. There he participates in the Siege of Washington on the Confederate side. Knowing all the hardships his home will endure if the war is won as historically, he assassinates Robert E. Lee in camp, causing the collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia. From there he does his best to ensure that Richmond falls to Rosecrans victorious army, which advances into the Confederate capital in Christmas 1863. The Confederacy collapses with the fall of its capital, and Britain makes a separate peace with the United States in early 1864 based on the status quo. From there, realizing he can’t go back, Jedediah does his best to subtly influence Virginia history, eventually becoming governor in 1888 and fast tracking ‘educated negro’ voting rights with his future understanding of “the slave shall not be the slave forever, and if I may spare my descendents the violence my own forebears knew that I shall mercifully do so.”

Seen as paternalistic towards African Americans today (with some passages now rightly considered racist) the book was a success, leaning into the popular time travel genre of the 1960s. It did not imagine much of the future world as Jedediah ends his story sometime in the 1890s happy he had kept the United States whole, keeping her on a less imperial trajectory for the future and his own Virginia spared the ravages of the 20th century. This was a time when race relations in the United States were improving and a new generation did not remember the political and racial animus driven by ideology in the 1910s. So a slightly progressive work for its time despite its numerous flaws.

For a perspective less wed to science fiction, 1983’s “The Spirit of Revolution'' was Gabriel Sharaa’s answer to his own question posed at the end of his 1977 novelization of the 1863 Battle of Saratoga, The Common Devils[2], what if the United States had fought on to victory over Britain? It was a unique look through the eyes of historical characters like Winfield Scott Hancock, Ambrose Burnside, Garnet Wolseley and Patrick Grant, with a small shifting group of soldiers in between. The novel is almost a simple reimagining of the Revolutionary War, but only from the Northern perspective. Sharaa imagines a quick turn around where Burnside’s victorious army, reinforced by Thomas’s soldiers who saved Washington, instead campaigns north in 1864, besieging and capturing Montreal by the end of the year. In 1865 Quebec is besieged and while off handed mention is made of Admiral Farragut winning a strategic victory over the Royal Navy off the coast of Maine, little is referenced beyond the campaign in Canada East. The story ends with Quebec’s surrender and the two generals, Wolseley and Hancock, speaking of a ‘culmination of the American Revolution’ and how surely the United States must spread across the whole continent. In the now infamous epilogue, President Roosevelt stands on the pier at Vera Cruz in 1917 watching the dreadnought taking the Mexican Imperial Family into exile in Belgium. He reflects to himself it is the same day that Saratoga was won and that the “spirit of the Revolution to bring democracy to the peoples of North America is at last fulfilled.”

While many today, and then, criticized the book as unrealistic (Shaara’s son would jokingly say it was why he decided to write historical fiction that only stuck to the script) it sold well. It dodged the questions of contemporary politics by focusing only on the foreign war in his novel, deeply imitating the idea of a successful expulsion of monarchism from the North American continent. Some criticized recycling history for his campaign to Quebec, while others felt that the British characters were flat in comparison to his American ones. It was a lionization of what was imagined as “apolitical generals” a common theme in Sharaa’s war work, most likely influenced by his own time in the military. However, it does imagine a different world where the United States has annexed all of Canada and Mexico, with a reflection that between Russia, the United States and Germany, the world will enter a new era of peace and prosperity, having comprehensively defeated the Entente.

From 1998-2001 the epic trilogy "The Union Forever", ran a meticulous story plotting the military and political maneuvers in the campaigns from Richmond and Washington to the men on the ground. The three part series, uniquely, imagines a world where there was no Trent Affair and so Britain did not intervene in the war. Shorne of two fronts to fight on, the novels instead track campaigns through Virginia and Mississippi. Like many, the authors have a dim view of General McClellan and opt to instead kill him off in the fictitious ‘Battle of Glendale” and Ambrose Burnside commands the Army of the Potomac until 1864. He is then replaced by Winfield Scott Hancock who drives deep into Virginia in 1866[3], capturing Richmond after defeating Lee’s army in the field.

In the West the book chooses to focus on Grant and Thomas[4], the two men running campaigns deep into Tennessee. Thomas captures Knoxville in 1863 while Grant, after many failed attempts, at last takes Vicksburg in 1864, in combination with the United States Navy capturing New Orleans in 1863. A grinding campaign brings both men to the Gulf in 1865, with their forces preparing to march north into Virginia. The battered army of Albert Sidney Johnston hooks up with Lee and the remnants of his army, with the two sides making a last stand at Bentonville, North Carolina in June 1866. The climactic Battle of Bentonville is described in detail, with both Lee and Johnston being mortally wounded, and Joseph Johnston surrendering rather than engage in a pointless fight to the death.

The final three epilogue chapters detail how Lincoln places the South under military occupation, akin to a police state, and his successor, President Hancock who the war has turned into a Republican, is inaugurated believing the South must be kept under the heel of a military government until it changes its ways and vows the Union will be forever by any means necessary during his inauguration speech.

The novel has been praised for its characterization and attention to detail. The two authors worked hard to vividly imagine how difficult these campaigns would be, what effect it would have on the men who fought in the war, and how it might change American opinions. Grant, who was known to be an alcoholic historically, is depicted as falling deeper into drinking as the war goes on, to the point he drinks himself into a stupor and cannot be present for the final surrender at Bentonville he is so overcome by the horrors he has witnessed. The attention to 19th century warfare has also been praised, with the deep study of the rifle tactics of the war based on research done in the 1990s. Popular especially in the circles of military history, it is seen as a credible imagining of how the war could have been won by the Union, even if some do question the outcome being a total victory for the Union.

Finally, the most recent novel written is 2003’s “The Bough Breaks” wherein the Confederacy, with British support, breaks into Washington and forces the surrender of the United States[5], which cedes the state of Maine and the Washington Territory to Britain, while the Confederacy maintains its maximalist gains, seizing Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. California secedes immediately after the war with Nevada, Oregon, Idaho and Washington joining, leaving a rump United States with its capital at Philadelphia. The novel is set in 1967 as the United States discusses an alliance with the British Empire in the face of Franco-Confederate encroachment in the Caribbean, which threatens to severely limit US trade. Talk of a Russo-British cold war permeates the background with discussions on the “Germanies” being a comparison point between British and American diplomats. The main characters are Jubilee Keckley (implied to be a descendent of Elizabeth Keckley) is a white passing member of the State Department who is approached by a member of the Underground Railroad, now a revolutionary group looking to topple the nation. The Confederacy is teetering on the edge of economic collapse, and a massive slave uprising threatens to engulf the South. The novel pivots around the trouble facing the smaller black population of the United States, and whether reunification is possible one hundred years after the war if the Confederacy collapses.

It is a novel of its time, but one that does offer a fascinating, if catastrophic, look at North American history if the war ended sooner. The speculation is that slavery would have endured far longer and in a far more brutal form. Though many today do scoff at the notion, considering how slavery de-facto ended in our own history with such violent results, it is an interesting theory.

The works of alternate history are always an interesting examination of what could have been. Though the Great American War defined history and its study in North America for nearly a century, being only unseated by the global Great War half a century later, it remains fodder for both regular and counterfactual fiction. The stories examined here are only a slice of the tales told by authors looking at how the world might have shaped itself differently to ours had a few events gone differently.

Next week, we’ll be examining the alternate history after the War of 1812 as a counterpoint to this seminal moment in American history!” - What If? Counterfactual Magazine, December 2006 issue

-----

1] The Great American War is in vogue up to the 20th Century, but in the 21st some are questioning this.

2] Consider this my answer to OTL’s The Killer Angels.

3] There's a bit of a consensus that the war would have to run until 1866. The South is just too big otherwise. It's also a bit of a backlash to Under the Southern Cross in universe as people think there's no way the fall of Richmond would see the Confederacy collapse in so short a time frame.

4] Alas poor William T. Sherman! It is his brother who will be more famous!

5] Indeed the Great American War almost ended here in Wrapped in Flames. The whole conflict seemed to be barrelling towards this conclusion, and I briefly did consider Washington being captured alongside the Army of the Potomac and Lincoln being forced to sue for a much more bitter peace. However, with the commanders I put in charge and the very real logistical nightmares Lee's siege would have faced, I decided it was more in spirit with the war how I imagined it seeing the siege broken and a real 'hope spot' emerging for the United States right before things went to hell!

 

[Gentleman Johnny]

Chapter 127: What If?​

“The history of the 19th Century is replete with points of divergence that could have changed the course of history as we know it. Many ask what if this or that event had not happened. For instance, what if the South had never seceded, would that have stopped the chain of dominos leading to the violent events of the 20th century? Or what if Lincoln had won a second term, would he have managed to resolve the War of Secession[1] to a better conclusion for North America? Could slavery have ended earlier? These are often the questions that writers seek to explore when engaging in alternate history. Though it is an ultimately unknowable answer, writers nonetheless enjoy experimenting with the concept. In this article we will review the better known avenues of the alternate history regarding what historians call the Great American War as it has been envisioned in the past.

It may surprise readers to know that this is an old topic. The first works which could be called “alternate history” today on the subject were actually written in the early 20th century. Henry Adams, who lived through the war, wrote “The World of The United States” in 1900, specifically using “the” United States rather than the more common “these” United States as was the case until the 1960s. That alone set the tone for readers. In the work he imagined a world where war with Britain was never fought and the United States, through material advantages and the political unity of the Republican Party, defeated the Confederacy and imposed an end of slavery on the South by 1864. Though he did not specify how the war was won, merely writing “through her material and military supremacy the United States triumphed” and instead focused on the years leading up to 1900. This different United States abolished slavery in 1864, and in Lincoln’s second term helped bring about a revolution which abolished the institution in Cuba by 1867 and absorbed the island into the United States. A very different outcome than we would be familiar with today!

However, he largely focused on how a whole United States would be a force for good in the world, Imagining no monarchies to its north and south (he briefly alludes to a Canadian Democracy) but also imagines that American pressure would force France from Mexico and keep that republic alive. By 1900 he envisioned all of the Caribbean having thrown off European rule and instead been absorbed into the United States. In South America too he alludes to ‘sister republics’ which are in a quasi alliance with the United States. Europe meanwhile is still ‘trapped in despotism’ but with friendly powers like Russia and Prussia acting as checks on the ‘infernal ambitions’ of France, England and Spain. In a way he did inadvertently predict some aspects of the future but perhaps not in the way he thought.

A counterpoint would be Winston Churchill’s “If There Was a United States” written in 1931’s collection "If It Had Happened Otherwise.” Churchill imagines a world where the United States, winning the war first through canny diplomacy with Britain, exiting that conflict in 1862 with a white peace, and then turning its furious energies on the Confederacy. The war lasts to 1866 with the South “wholly subjugated” by Northern arms, and slavery being abolished by a third term Abraham Lincoln. From there Churchill imagines the United States taking an imperial view of the world, conquering such different places as Cuba, Hawaii, Taiwan and portions of West Africa. The United States becomes a global power, one of the “Three Hegemons” as he calls it, dividing global interests with Britain and Russia who exert vast control over vast swathes of territory that by 1910 are able to push others like France, China and Prussia around to avert wars. Naturally, Churchill envisions the only wars the powers undertake as “police actions” against the Ottomans and Chinese which carve up their empires to create a more stable world order.

Of course, in each of these examples we can see a world viewed through the biases of the authors. For Adams it's his position as one of the leading New Men who looks to burnish the national image of the United States at a time where she was grappling with her place in the world. For Churchill it is imagining a stable global order after the Great War and the uncomfortable realization that non-European powers have a seat at the global table, a point he always argued against with his twin. Modern writers of course are not immune to such biases, but it is interesting to examine how these works are shaped by their predecessors.

The first novel, most well known of course, was 1964’s "Under the Southern Cross" is the story of Jedediah Smith, a Virginian, who inadvertently travels back in time. The world he lives in is one infested with ‘communism’ where the black dominated People’s Confederacy controls the whole of the Southern United States, allied to the West African Peoples Republic and a Communist Iberia which exports “Marxist-Lincolnism” to the peoples of the world, and eventually conquer the United States. Stumbling on a secret project to go back in time and arm a slave uprising with modern weapons, he falls through the time machine, disabling it, and finds himself in 1863, a year before his own having gone exactly 101 years back. There he participates in the Siege of Washington on the Confederate side. Knowing all the hardships his home will endure if the war is won as historically, he assassinates Robert E. Lee in camp, causing the collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia. From there he does his best to ensure that Richmond falls to Rosecrans victorious army, which advances into the Confederate capital in Christmas 1863. The Confederacy collapses with the fall of its capital, and Britain makes a separate peace with the United States in early 1864 based on the status quo. From there, realizing he can’t go back, Jedediah does his best to subtly influence Virginia history, eventually becoming governor in 1888 and fast tracking ‘educated negro’ voting rights with his future understanding of “the slave shall not be the slave forever, and if I may spare my descendents the violence my own forebears knew that I shall mercifully do so.”

Seen as paternalistic towards African Americans today (with some passages now rightly considered racist) the book was a success, leaning into the popular time travel genre of the 1960s. It did not imagine much of the future world as Jedediah ends his story sometime in the 1890s happy he had kept the United States whole, keeping her on a less imperial trajectory for the future and his own Virginia spared the ravages of the 20th century. This was a time when race relations in the United States were improving and a new generation did not remember the political and racial animus driven by ideology in the 1910s. So a slightly progressive work for its time despite its numerous flaws.

For a perspective less wed to science fiction, 1983’s “The Spirit of Revolution'' was Gabriel Sharaa’s answer to his own question posed at the end of his 1977 novelization of the 1863 Battle of Saratoga, The Common Devils[2], what if the United States had fought on to victory over Britain? It was a unique look through the eyes of historical characters like Winfield Scott Hancock, Ambrose Burnside, Garnet Wolseley and Patrick Grant, with a small shifting group of soldiers in between. The novel is almost a simple reimagining of the Revolutionary War, but only from the Northern perspective. Sharaa imagines a quick turn around where Burnside’s victorious army, reinforced by Thomas’s soldiers who saved Washington, instead campaigns north in 1864, besieging and capturing Montreal by the end of the year. In 1865 Quebec is besieged and while off handed mention is made of Admiral Farragut winning a strategic victory over the Royal Navy off the coast of Maine, little is referenced beyond the campaign in Canada East. The story ends with Quebec’s surrender and the two generals, Wolseley and Hancock, speaking of a ‘culmination of the American Revolution’ and how surely the United States must spread across the whole continent. In the now infamous epilogue, President Roosevelt stands on the pier at Vera Cruz in 1917 watching the dreadnought taking the Mexican Imperial Family into exile in Belgium. He reflects to himself it is the same day that Saratoga was won and that the “spirit of the Revolution to bring democracy to the peoples of North America is at last fulfilled.”

While many today, and then, criticized the book as unrealistic (Shaara’s son would jokingly say it was why he decided to write historical fiction that only stuck to the script) it sold well. It dodged the questions of contemporary politics by focusing only on the foreign war in his novel, deeply imitating the idea of a successful expulsion of monarchism from the North American continent. Some criticized recycling history for his campaign to Quebec, while others felt that the British characters were flat in comparison to his American ones. It was a lionization of what was imagined as “apolitical generals” a common theme in Sharaa’s war work, most likely influenced by his own time in the military. However, it does imagine a different world where the United States has annexed all of Canada and Mexico, with a reflection that between Russia, the United States and Germany, the world will enter a new era of peace and prosperity, having comprehensively defeated the Entente.

From 1998-2001 the epic trilogy "The Union Forever", ran a meticulous story plotting the military and political maneuvers in the campaigns from Richmond and Washington to the men on the ground. The three part series, uniquely, imagines a world where there was no Trent Affair and so Britain did not intervene in the war. Shorne of two fronts to fight on, the novels instead track campaigns through Virginia and Mississippi. Like many, the authors have a dim view of General McClellan and opt to instead kill him off in the fictitious ‘Battle of Glendale” and Ambrose Burnside commands the Army of the Potomac until 1864. He is then replaced by Winfield Scott Hancock who drives deep into Virginia in 1866[3], capturing Richmond after defeating Lee’s army in the field.

In the West the book chooses to focus on Grant and Thomas[4], the two men running campaigns deep into Tennessee. Thomas captures Knoxville in 1863 while Grant, after many failed attempts, at last takes Vicksburg in 1864, in combination with the United States Navy capturing New Orleans in 1863. A grinding campaign brings both men to the Gulf in 1865, with their forces preparing to march north into Virginia. The battered army of Albert Sidney Johnston hooks up with Lee and the remnants of his army, with the two sides making a last stand at Bentonville, North Carolina in June 1866. The climactic Battle of Bentonville is described in detail, with both Lee and Johnston being mortally wounded, and Joseph Johnston surrendering rather than engage in a pointless fight to the death.

The final three epilogue chapters detail how Lincoln places the South under military occupation, akin to a police state, and his successor, President Hancock who the war has turned into a Republican, is inaugurated believing the South must be kept under the heel of a military government until it changes its ways and vows the Union will be forever by any means necessary during his inauguration speech.

The novel has been praised for its characterization and attention to detail. The two authors worked hard to vividly imagine how difficult these campaigns would be, what effect it would have on the men who fought in the war, and how it might change American opinions. Grant, who was known to be an alcoholic historically, is depicted as falling deeper into drinking as the war goes on, to the point he drinks himself into a stupor and cannot be present for the final surrender at Bentonville he is so overcome by the horrors he has witnessed. The attention to 19th century warfare has also been praised, with the deep study of the rifle tactics of the war based on research done in the 1990s. Popular especially in the circles of military history, it is seen as a credible imagining of how the war could have been won by the Union, even if some do question the outcome being a total victory for the Union.

Finally, the most recent novel written is 2003’s “The Bough Breaks” wherein the Confederacy, with British support, breaks into Washington and forces the surrender of the United States[5], which cedes the state of Maine and the Washington Territory to Britain, while the Confederacy maintains its maximalist gains, seizing Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. California secedes immediately after the war with Nevada, Oregon, Idaho and Washington joining, leaving a rump United States with its capital at Philadelphia. The novel is set in 1967 as the United States discusses an alliance with the British Empire in the face of Franco-Confederate encroachment in the Caribbean, which threatens to severely limit US trade. Talk of a Russo-British cold war permeates the background with discussions on the “Germanies” being a comparison point between British and American diplomats. The main characters are Jubilee Keckley (implied to be a descendent of Elizabeth Keckley) is a white passing member of the State Department who is approached by a member of the Underground Railroad, now a revolutionary group looking to topple the nation. The Confederacy is teetering on the edge of economic collapse, and a massive slave uprising threatens to engulf the South. The novel pivots around the trouble facing the smaller black population of the United States, and whether reunification is possible one hundred years after the war if the Confederacy collapses.

It is a novel of its time, but one that does offer a fascinating, if catastrophic, look at North American history if the war ended sooner. The speculation is that slavery would have endured far longer and in a far more brutal form. Though many today do scoff at the notion, considering how slavery de-facto ended in our own history with such violent results, it is an interesting theory.

The works of alternate history are always an interesting examination of what could have been. Though the Great American War defined history and its study in North America for nearly a century, being only unseated by the global Great War half a century later, it remains fodder for both regular and counterfactual fiction. The stories examined here are only a slice of the tales told by authors looking at how the world might have shaped itself differently to ours had a few events gone differently.

Next week, we’ll be examining the alternate history after the War of 1812 as a counterpoint to this seminal moment in American history!” - What If? Counterfactual Magazine, December 2006 issue

-----

1] The Great American War is in vogue up to the 20th Century, but in the 21st some are questioning this.

2] Consider this my answer to OTL’s The Killer Angels.

3] There's a bit of a consensus that the war would have to run until 1866. The South is just too big otherwise. It's also a bit of a backlash to Under the Southern Cross in universe as people think there's no way the fall of Richmond would see the Confederacy collapse in so short a time frame.

4] Alas poor William T. Sherman! It is his brother who will be more famous!

5] Indeed the Great American War almost ended here in Wrapped in Flames. The whole conflict seemed to be barrelling towards this conclusion, and I briefly did consider Washington being captured alongside the Army of the Potomac and Lincoln being forced to sue for a much more bitter peace. However, with the commanders I put in charge and the very real logistical nightmares Lee's siege would have faced, I decided it was more in spirit with the war how I imagined it seeing the siege broken and a real 'hope spot' emerging for the United States right before things went to hell!

This is great! There's quite a few of these stories I'd like to read. Hancock being a war hero & president is interesting to see. I always felt that he's one of the Union generals that deserves more love rather than being largely forgotten by the average people.

I also liked the reference to Churchill's If it Had Happened Otherwise. I have that book! I have both editions and it's one of my favorites.

Anyway, this was awesome to see! This has been my favorite TL on this site for a while now and it continues to be so. Looking very forward to where the future of this story goes!​

 

[naraht]

I have some plans for Central America, and the efforts of Europe to influence it are at the top of the "potential problems" list for the last half of the 19th Century and the dawn of the 20th century!

As an aside for readers of the excellent Cinco De Mayo, you can indeed expect something different from how it goes there 😉

(Except when it comes to canals, the canals will always be a problem...)

Well, the Suez was easy, any canal in Central America must be as well...

I'm still not convinced that some random Pharoah if they had decided they had enough pointy things made of stone couldn't have created the Canal.

 

[DarkAvenger]

Looking at the latest post referencing the Great War, it seems that Russia, Germany and the US form an alliance against the Entente consisting of Western Europe and lost to them, and become subject to a harsher Versailles-style Treaty that sees the US collapse and briefly cease to exist (Churchill's short story references this) and reunify in the 1960s like Germany after the Cold War and would become a British ally, the CS experiences massive problems that it eventually overcomes and Britain would be embroiled in a 'cold war' with France (based on a previous post about Britain being concerned about the French Navy). I don't know what happens to Germany and Russia but it seems China would become a Great Power in the 20th century.

Also, Churchill having a twin? Wonder who that is.

A question: Is the Long Depression going to happen? If it does, I imagine it would hit the US even harder than OTL although I'm not sure about the UK as it experienced economic decline for a long time when it started.