1944- The Second Civil War

Okay, another "What if?" topic from Ike so put on your creative thinking caps. Here we go...
All politics and reason aside, what if America experienced another Civil War in 1944? take your time.

 

The question would be, why would there have been a civil war there?

But it wouldn't have affected much the defeat of Germany. The problem would have been leaving the British Empire alone again and Japan would have given a very needed break.

 

Like I said, I know it's a stretch but it's something to think about. You'll find that I'm going to be the one asking all the outrageous thought-provoking questions (and I hope to post them when I think of them).

 

I don't know what would have happened when America would be in a civil war in 1944. Would Roosevelt have stopped the war and what would the American troops have done who were waiting to sail over the Channel?

 

They probably wouldn't have called the entire war off, but it wouldn't have helped at all back home. As for the men in England, they most likely were not concerned about politics during that time anyway, but what would they have been coming home to?

 

That's a good question.

 

isn't it? Anybody creative enough to have an opinion. It would make a great fiction, wouldn't it? I'm gonna write a book...

 

Something along the lines of this scenario is already being done by science fiction writer Harry Turtledove. He is on book seven of a series that began with the novel How Few Remain, which was set in the 1880s, some twenty years after the Confederates gained independence from the United States on the battlefield. The United States tries to conquer the Confederacy and Britain and France side with the Confederacy against the US. During the war, Canada expands into New England while the Confederates expand to the Pacfic by seizing parts of the southwest and Mexico, and provoking a failed Mormon attempt to break away from the United States.

In The Great War: American Front, The Great War: Walk in Hell and The Great War: Breakthroughs the embittered and irredentist United States responds to its second defeat by fighting alongisde imperial Germany against the Confederate-Anglo-French alliance in a First World War in which Teddy Roosevelt's victorious United States defeats a second Mormon rebellion, conquers Canada, annexes large sections of the Confederacy and nearly destroys the Confederacy by provoking a widespread rebellion by Confederate blacks.

In American Empire: Blood and Iron, American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold and American Empire: The Victorious Opposition, a Hitlerian Confederate politician gains power in Richmond, rearms the Confederacy, dupes the United States into allowing plebicites in the Confederate 'Sudetenlands' of Kentucky, Oklahoma and western Texas, and experiments with genocide against Confederate blacks.

As the most recent book ends, the embittered and irredentist Franco-Anglo-Confederate alliance have succeeded in starting another world war when the United States and Germany refuse to cede any more of the lands they liberated, captured or reclaimed in the Great War - Ireland, Alsace-Lorraine, Oklahoma, northern Virginia, etc. Thus begins World War II with Confederate and US armies preparing to unleash their new planes and tanks against one another across the Ohio, in Virginia, and in Texas.

[ 04. November 2003, 08:37 PM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]

 

that is some imagination!

I'm never very good at what ifs. I always want to hear...ok HOW did the confederacy beat the united states in the first civil war...and then i want to know how the united states was defeated again. How strong was the Confederate war machine. Did they abolish slavery? Simply stating that the confederate states after winning independance sides with britain france and canada and defeat the US again in the 1880's is just too much for me.

To say that, without any detail of many things just makes me feel like you can say anything. Like a fantasy...i remember reading a what-if scenerio book of the axis winning WW2 and could never get into it. While creating their new history they would simply change events like "6 planes sunk Yorktown in Midway" that isn't a quote from the book but it is the jist of how it sounded. Things just happen a different way and to me it just makes broad what-ifs seem just to fantastical to get into.

But i do like what-ifs regarding decisions. Like what if Germany waited until 1945 to invade Poland...or what if Germany did not invade Russia until 1945? Those are more up my ally.

 

While a four paragraph summary of seven books which average about 500 pages each cannot convey much detail, the tale, as with all books, is in the telling. While no one genre will appeal to everyone, Turtledove usually delivers for those who enjoy 'what-ifs.'

To answer your questions, in Turtledove's alternate history the Confederate victory in 1862 was the result of Union troops not having had the good fortune of finding a lost copy of Robert E. Lee's orders and winning the Battle of Antietam as a result. According to Turtledove, the lost orders were not found, and the Confederate victory at Antietam enabled the Confederates to take DC.

In Turtledove's alternate history, the second Confederate victory in 1881 was the result of the US having engaged in a futile and blood-drenched slugging match with the Confederates in Kentucky while the Confederacy's European allies established naval superiority on the Great Lakes and along America's coasts and while state and territorial militias were left to defend New England and the Great Plains against British troops advancing from Canada.

According to Turtledove, the Confederacy did gradually free the slaves in exchange for European support in the second war, but it replaced slavery with a racist police state.

[ 04. November 2003, 06:32 AM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]

 

The big problem with what-if's of this magnitude is that they do not factor in causlity. Think about it this way, there was a second world war because of a particular series of events that were a result of the actions of a particular set of people. Take the example of the Confederacy winning the civil war, as a result of that things would change considerable, now (getting all technical here) you have to remember that the only reason that you were born as you and not as someone completly different is because your parents were doing certain things at a certain time of a certain day that resulted in your conception. If they had picked a different hour there is a chance you would be someone who is 50% genetically different from who you are now, if they picked a different day there is a good chance you would not be concieved, if they picked a different month you would be a totally different person. The same applies for historical figures. What I am saying is that what a lot of these fiction writers forget is that if you change history even a very small amount it can have huge repercussions (e.g. you mentioned Teddy Rosevelt, well the chances are he would not be the same Teddy we know about today).

I am rambling but does that make sense to you folks? There is no way we can predict what would happen because even small changes have a huge difference..

 

True Stefan, but for some fans of alternate histories seeing the alternate versions of known historical figures is part of the appeal. For the most part, however, Turtledove does not use known historical figures in this series as protagonists.

There are a few exceptions. For example, William Sherman leads a futile defense of 1881 San Francisco in "How Few Remain" against a Royal Marine landing force while reporter Mark Twain looks on. On the other hand, his Confederate Hitler is a completely fictional Confederate veteran of the Great War.

In the case of Teddy Roosevelt, TR was born in 1858, prior to the Civil War. He is therefore available, so to speak, for use as a post Civil War character. So the question is, is Turtledove's depiction of TR, first as a self-appointed Montana militia officer defending the Great Plains from British troops advancing out of Canada in "How Few Remain," and later as the gung-ho US war leader of the Great War books plausible?

TR afficionados might quibble, but I think Turtledove's TR works as a character.

[ 04. November 2003, 08:32 PM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]

 

This is a good thread and I like the what-ifs, but not such exaggerated ones... I cannot imagine by any means how there could have been a civil war in the United States in 1944... I can imagine the Confederate United States winning the civil war, but nothing beyond that.

However, there's another big posibility, a real one which could have changed History dramatically. And that is; if Napoléon III had conquested Mexico, forming a Mexican Habsburg Empire. Napoléon's intentions in America involved the annihilation of the United States and Mexico could have been the perfect base to do it. So, Mexico falls - it was very close to - and then Napoléon III moves his mighty Army northwards. There's a bloody civil war and the country's economy is almost ruined. The US and CUS would have agreed a quick cease fire to fight the French - but both armies were no rivals for the French - and when they move southwards, a couple thousand British troops advance from Canada. Do you really think that the USA, in the middle of a bloody civil war could have defeated a two front invasion by the two most powerful nations in the world?

But that's a different thread...

 

Forgive the stretch, I was just thinking about it recently and wanted other people's opinions. As for the two front invasion from France and England, that seems like it would make an interesting scenario...

 

Well, I must say America was never so unifies in the years of WWII so I don't think it would have been possible to actually have another Civil War. I can't think of anything that would break the unity that the States had at that time.

 

Hahaha. Okay okay...bad thread.

 

If America went into another civil war, Roosevelt would have kept men overseas so that the South couldn't muster much of a fighting force and the rebellion would end quickly. Then when the war in Europe ended, Truman would only let Northerners back home, thus the South would not have much of a chance. When the civil war ended the Southerners overseas (or on the seas) would be allowed back into the country.