Glen
Moderator
The Clay Victorious Compilation
Prologue: Obituary of an Abolitionist, October 1844.
....Liberty Candidate James Gillespie Birney was thrown from his horse and swiftly succumbed to his injuries. This tragedy mere weeks before the election has thrown the Liberty Party into serious disarray. He is survived by his two sons, William and David....
Chapter One: Henry Clay's First Administration
....Whig Candidate Henry Clay won a narrow victory in November of 1844. This win ended for the time the push for expansion of the territories of the United States, given President-Elect Clay's position on the matter....His first four years saw a steady increase in internal improvements within the United States, one of President Clay's passions....In the last year of his first Administration, President Clay renewed for another ten years the codominion agreement regarding the Oregon Country between the United States and Great Britain. Ironically, the Clay Administration had also pushed for expansion of the railways to the early portions of the Oregon Trail, increasing the rate of settlers heading for the Oregon Country....Clay won reelection in 1848 by a comfortable margin....
Chapter Two: President Clay's Second Administration
....During Clay's first Administration, Mexico had floundered through a number of failed governments and the border region between Mexico and Texas had been an unsettled one that would see alternating periods of wary truce and low level border clashes. The Texan Government strove to deal with their substantial war debt....It was in the first year of Clay's second term that the situation changed with the Californian Gold Rush. The boom in Mexico's Northwestern area promised a welcome increase in income to Mexico's government and the economy in general, but was also bringing more Americans, Oregonians, and even Texans, into the area, though this was somewhat ameliorated by the Mexicans moving up to Alta California as well....Therefore, when President Clay offered to mediate a treaty between Mexico and Texas, the Mexicans were interested....The final treaty agreement was surprisingly generous to the Republic of Texas, conceding most of their points, in return for the American pledge to respect and maintain the integrity of Mexico's borders thereafter, particularly with respect to California, as well as maintaining in perpetuity the independence of Texas from the United States....the United States gained in the treaty significant trading concessions, including liberal use of Mexican Pacific ports....while a controversial agreement at the time, it later was seen as the cornerstone of peace in North America....President Clay nearly served out his entire second term before dying peacefully in office in 1852....By the time of his death, Henry Clay had guaranteed peace on the Continent, maintained the Missouri Compromise, and greatly improved the infrastructure of the United States of America....
Chapter Three: Franklin Pierce and the Great Expansion
....Theodore Frelinghuysen was president only briefly, and was passed over for the Whig nomination. However, it was the Democratic nominee, Franklin Pierce, who won the election in 1852....President Pierce in his first term of office presided over the greatest gains in American territory since Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase. Initial inquiries by the Pierce Administration into the possible purchase of Cuba from Spain were rebuffed, and started to strain relations between the two nations. When Spanish officials in Cuba began illegally siezed an American ship in 1854, this was the final straw that triggered the Spanish-American War. The war was especially popular in the South, and many Southerners volunteered and raised troops. The North was less sanguine about annexing potential slave territories, but felt national honor was at stake. The war was entirely constrained to the Caribbean basin. In the end, the Spanish were forced to cede Cuba and Puerto Rico to the United States....Only a year later, two more major events would play out in part due to the victory of the US in the war. Oregonians, now a majority originating from the United States, clamored for annexation, supported by Northerners fearful of the possible unbalancing of the new Spanish territories to the Missouri Compromise. With the British embroiled in war against Russia in the Crimea, and faced with otherwise having to quell an increasingly restive American presence in the Oregon Country, they acquiesced to President Pierce's overtures to rescind the codominion agreement and allow the Oregon Country to pass into American possession. In that same year, President Santana would negotiate to bring the strategically placed Dominican Republic under the aegis of the United States as a Protectorate....As a result of the British cession of Oregon to the Americans, the curious event of the only Canadian 'Filibuster' occured when several hundred Canadian Oregonians went North to invade the wilderness of Russian Alaska. The Canadians were subsequently supported by a small Royal Navy contingent detached from the Kamchatka campaign. With the end of the Crimean War, Alaska was formally ceded to British North America for a small indemnity. The acquisition of Alaska and access to the Pacific helped ameliorate some Canadian ire at the loss of the Oregon Country, though not fully until the Gold Rush years later....Pierce won re-election in 1856, being hailed by many as one of the great American presidents....Pierce's last years in office were marred by the border raids from Haiti that necessitated the American occupation of the Haitian portion of Hispaniola.
Chapter Four: North America in the Late 1850s
The late 1850s saw a number of important changes besides the annexations of Canada and the US. In Mexico, politics made strange bedfellows as Liberals led by Juarez united with the Forty-Niners of Alta California and the Mormons of the Salt Lake region to pressure moderates into siding with them or risk Civil War and possible disintergration of the nation. A new, liberal, secular Constitution was instituted for Mexico under the Juarez Administration. These changes coupled with an anticorruption drive and continued repayment of loans would help undercut the Conservatives and the Church (as would be shown when the Conservative abortive coup fizzled in the 1860s for lack of support both domestic and abroad)....While the Caribbean additions to America added slave territory to the Union, pro-slavery settlers began to invade the Indian territory, which fell in slavery territory. Eventually, this would cause increasing pressure on the government to move the Indians further North and West, despite many of them being slaveholders as well. In this climate, Texan President Houston during his third term was able to induce the Texan Congress into offering settlement and citizenship to the Cherokee nation in return for their efforts to combat the Comanche and other, 'uncivilized' tribes in West Texas. Many Cherokee still trusted Sam Houston and accepted. The success of with the Cherokee would lead to extension of the offer to other civilized tribes in later years, and help settle the Texan West.
Chapter Five: The Douglas Administration
Though the Democrats retained the Presidency in 1860 when Stephen Douglas won, it was by only the narrowest of victories, despite carrying the entirety of the South. In the 1862 Congressional elections, the Whigs would gain a commanding majority in the House. While the tradition of admitting equal numbers of slave and free states had keep the balance in the Senate, the North's burgeoning immigrant population was beginning to make the future outlook for Democratic victories doubtful. Slave and Free states were becoming more polarized in their politics due to the continued issue of slavery and the growing issue of immigration. Democrats had become increasingly anti-immigrant to stem the tide, but had failed due to the demands of manpower continued industrialization required, that in the North slaves could not provide. Whigs were matching Immigrant Power against Democrat Slave Power. Stephen Douglas, a man of high principles, was unable in his tenure in office to provide an answer for his party's burgeoning dilemma. Attempts to increase the numeration of slaves were dead on arrival in the House, and could not even come to cloture on the Senate.
Chapter Six: Douglas by an Elector
The election of 1864 pitted two old rivals against one another, President Douglas and Whig Illinois Senator Abraham Lincoln. The South was solidly behind Douglas, deriding Lincoln as an Abolishionist even though he was one of the more moderate Whigs of the time. However, given the increasing population of the North, it was expected that Lincoln would topple the President. However, what was not counted upon was a faithless elector who threw the majority to Douglas....However, the second Douglas Administration found itself increasingly ineffectual as Whigs continued to control the House and deadlock the Senate, and with the continued Indian Wars in the West and Haitian murders in the South....It was almost with relief that Douglas relinquished his presidency in 1869 to his previous rival, President-Elect Lincoln....
Interlude: Some loose odds and ends.
In this timeline, some things have changed, and some have stayed the same.
William Walker played an active role in agitating for American Annexation in the Oregon Country. He then went on to play almost exactly the same role as he did IOTL in Central America, with for him the same result.
Robert E Lee played a major role in the Cuban Campaign, and is considered one of the heroes of the Spanish-American War. Although put forward as a possible candidate for the Presidency in 1860, he asked to be removed from consideration.
John Fremont, Brigham Young, and Benito Juarez are in a strange alliance of convenience in Mexico against the Church and the Conservatives.
This timeline so far has saved the lives of three historical figures:
- Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian Joseph (doesn't become Emperor Maximillian of Mexico, isn't shot by Juarez).
- Stephen Douglas (stays in DC as president instead of going to Chicago rallying support for the Union in 1861, doesn't get Typhoid Fever).
- Abraham Lincoln (no Civil War so far, wasn't assassinated in 1865).
A couple interesting notes about the politics thus far....
Since the POD, all two term Presidents. In part this is just dumb luck, in part it represents the greater stability of this US compared to its OTL counterpart. Douglas should have been a one-termer, but it just didn't work out that way in my head, for aesthetic reasons as much as anything else.
Whig Party never busted up, and while becoming more and more anti-slavery, it is a much slower, more moderate strain since the Missouri Compromise has held, compared to the upstart Republicans who replaced them OTL. The Whigs have found Immigrant Power as a counter to Slave Power, and are now starting to cash in.
Democratic Party is much more nativist ITTL, since immigration is essentially eroding their own power by pumping up the number of Representatives and Electoral Votes for the Free North, despite holding the state numbers steady. The Democrats are going to start worrying hard in 1869, as now the Presidency and both Houses of Congress will be Whig. However, much as the Whigs are more moderate than the OTL Republicans, TTL's Democrats are also more moderate in their approach. While some will consider secession, it won't get that far yet.
BTW, though the North and the South are looking polarized, there are actually a lot more Whigs in the South and Democrats in the North than one might think. However, the majorities are pretty clear cut, giving the impression of a greater divide between North and South than might otherwise be apparent. This also is helping to moderate the situation.
PS - The South is beginning to industrialize as well, but so far has been using Slave Power there as well, so immigrants are still more prone to go North.
Interlude II: More sundries
The opening of Japan was somewhat delayed as US interests in the Pacific were somewhat delayed absent the Mexican-American War. Therefore it was Commodore David Farragut who opened Japan to the West, not Perry. Farragut distinguished himself during the Spanish-American War and was later made Commodore of the Pacific Squadron.
While in 1869 the Whigs control the Presidency and the House, the Senate is still evenly divided though the Whigs are technically in charge due to the VP. The Supreme Court on the other hand is packed with Democrats, though the most recent batch of them are more moderate on the slavery question, wishing to preserve the balance rather than pushing for greater slave rights like the Taney court tended to do.
The Dred Scott case, btw, was decided in Dred Scott's favor by the Missouri Supreme Court, in keeping with previous precedent and the less volatile atmosphere of the times. This made the case less suitable for Taney's wishes, and as time passed the Court became less likely to side with an expansion of slaveholder rights, though also more intransigent in its desire to protect the status quo on the matter.
Overall, the Federal Government of 1869 is seen as swinging towards the Whigs, but with the Democrat Senate Minority and Democrat-packed Supreme Court as still viable checks.
Chapter Seven: The Lincoln Administration
Lincoln's first term in office was a time of exceeding tension. A Whig had not been President since Henry Clay in 1845, and now not only the Presidency but the Congress were in the hands of the lanky, gray-haired man from Illinois.
He began even before assuming office to calm fears in the South by promising to uphold the Missouri Compromise and to veto any legislation that would threaten the Union. At his inauguraltion, he also stated that while he would oppose the admission of any new slave state, he'd also uphold the principle of parity and not support free state admission either, instead calling for the US to 'pause and reflect upon four score and twelve years of Democracy'.
While the South was skeptical at first, indeed some going so far as to call for succession, others in the West making an exodus to Texas, in the end cooler heads prevailed, and the slave states took a wait and see attitude towards Lincoln. And Lincoln, though no friend to slavery, also did nothing overt to impose change upon the status quo, so much that by the time of his reelection in 1872, there was little popular outcry in the South, but rather a weary acceptance. With no additional states, the Senate remained in its deadlocked state on matters of slavery and immigration. However, as more Lincoln appointees to the Supreme Court took office with the deaths of the oldest members of the court, and the prospect of a Democratic win in 1876 seeming less and less likely, concerns began to rise again.
The Centennial of 1876 in the last year of Lincoln's second term would see the beginnings of the break in the logjam between the North and the South....
Chapter Eight: Emancipation!
In the Centennial year of 1876, a radical idea gained hold in the South Carolina Congress. First proposed by one of their youngest members as a means of gaining South Carolina its rightful apportionment of Representatives, and thus potentially stem the rising tide of Whig delegates, the idea was the last thing most Southerners had considered; Emancipation of the Slaves, but on Southern terms....The idea was to dismantle the institution of slavery without depriving Slaveholders of rightful recompense and without the shock of loss of their workforce. Slaves would be required to take out loans and essentially buy their own freedom. The loans would primarily be between themselves and their current owners, with their labor as their collateral. This way the relationships between master and servant would be retained for decades to come, and could even provide a profit to the former slaveholders....the emancipated slaves would now count for full numeration in the next census, thus increasing the representation of the state dramatically....as part of the legislation, any freedman without proof of employment (either for loan repayment or after the loan was repaid under the a sharecropping or other such arrangement) would be required to leave the state....the passage of the South Carolina legislation started a wave of emancipation in the South, with many seeing the wisdom of preserving the social hierarchy and the right of the states to control their own fates rather than risk the existence of even more radical Whig governments and their wild abolitionist ideas....It was too early for this sea change to effect the election of 1876 of Whig candidate David B. Birney, son of former Liberty candidate James G Birney....Mississippi was the last state to pass emancipation legislation in the Union, with their law going into full effect on December 31, 1879....While not enough to stop the reelection of President Birney in 1880, it would have a profound effect on politics after that point.
Chapter Nine: Texas and Northeastern Mexico
Slavery were having their effects as well on neighboring Texas and her border with Mexico as well in the latter half of the 19th Century....While slavery was an integral part of the Republic of Texas' Constitution, it was a half-hearted institution in practice. The lands of the Republic of Texas proved ill suited for plantations, and the struggling industries of Texas were few and far between, though they tended to follow the Southern model of using slave labor in their few factories, which was cheaper than free labor in manpower-starved Texas....Given the Texas Constitution's prohibition on free negroes and mulattos living in the Republic without express permission of Congress, the Texas/Mexican border became sparsely populated by these populations as the Mexican government was open to their settlement to help fight the influence of the 'wild indians' of the region. The relations between these colored peoples and the indigenous tribes was a complex one, sometimes antagonistic and sometimes cooperative....Many of the colored peoples migrating from Texas in the early days were required to convert to Catholicism, and even after the liberal reforms of the late 1850s, many newly arrived negros and mulattos would join the local Catholic churches of the communities they settled in....The Boom of 1869 saw one of the largest influx of settlers to Texas since the birth of the Republic, with some Southern plantation owners panicking in the wake of the Whig victory of 1868 and moving their operations and their substantial slave workforce to Texas, where they felt their rights would be safe. While the government was no threat to their slaves, the climate and economic conditions in Texas were, and by 1876, the Boom had gone Bust, with many of the new arrivals going bankrupt and the bottom falling out on the slave market in Texas....They could not return to the US with their slaves, nor sell them into the US, due to US laws of long standing forbidding slave trade with foreign nations....Even emancipation to remove the burden of having to support their slaves was problematic as this also required the permission of the Texan Congress....Several destitute slaveholders fortunate enough to be close to the Mexican border would transport their slaves into Mexico where they would be free, but then left to fend for themselves. For others, even the transport costs were too onerous....By 1877, the Texan Congress passed the Freedom to Emancipate Act, giving slaveholders blanket permission to manumit their slaves if they chose to do so....however, even this proved inadequate as it left several freedmen in a precarious position of being illegally present in the state, barred as foreign freedmen from entering most bordering US territories, but sometimes too far from the Mexican border to make the trek in a timely fashion....the economically strapped Texan government could not afford to transport the large number of freedmen created by the financial crisis, and thus passed in 1878 legislation giving permission for freedmen to live in the Republic so long as they were gainfully employed, modeled on Southern state legislation....Though some freedmen still chose to enter Mexico eventually, this stabilized the situation enough to end the crisis....Slavery was moribund for most of the time after that except in industrial work, but even that ended when an anti-slavery Amendment was passed in 1900, making Texas the last Western Hemisphere nation to end slavery....
Random thoughts:
Chinese laborers come into Mexican California and American Oregon...sucks for them in both lands still.
Chapter Ten: Emancipated America; the First Quarter Century
....The initial results of the emancipation laws of the late 1870s varied wildly depending on the approach of the former slaveowner. Some slaveowners felt a noblisse oblige towards their former chattel and arranged generous loan agreements or even forgave the debt outright. Some remained exploitive, forcing their former slaves into debt peonage that showed little difference from their previous state. Most were somewhere in the middle, making agreements that would provide them with several more years of labor and a fair return on the initial value of their investment....Some debtor negros ran to the North to escape continued servitude, but were rebuffed by states that had passed laws since emancipation to prevent coloreds from entering the state. Those few that still allowed blacks entry to their states often found their debtholders filing suit for garnishment of wages that were upheld, even as far as the Supreme Court in 1888....Still, over the years, the lot of many negros improved as they worked off their emancipation debt....Many continued to work the land of their former masters as sharecroppers....While the laws still treated whites better than blacks, the negro family could no longer be torn apart on a whim, no longer were black women subject to the lusts of their masters (though transgressions still happened rarely), and corporeal punishment was no longer an option....Socially, the place of negros and mulattos began to undergo subtle changes in the South, with light skin mulattos beginning to be seen as exotic rather than just colored. Some of this attitude was inherited from the former Spanish Caribbean areas where color and status interacted in strange ways and were continuums rather than sharp lines. Louisiana and Florida were initial mainland states that also embraced this attitude....In the North, however, many immigrants and poor whites saw the emancipated as competition, and the blacks were more and more ostracized in the Northern States....
Chapter Eleven: The Haitian Diaspora
....The decades long military occupation of Haiti (briefly withdrawn by the Lincoln Administration, but forced to be reinstated after chaos ensued) led to the decimation of the second oldest Republic in the Hemisphere....Haitians were eventually excluded from every facet of their own governance. Haitian Creole was forbidden in public by the military government, schools run by Protestant missionaries from the States after too many Catholic Priests were accused of participating in insurrection....the Dominicans contributed the most forces to the occupation and their retribution for the years of Haitian rule was cruel....many died under the occupation, while those who could escaped to surrounding Caribbean islands or Latin America, sometimes on as little as makeshift rafts....by the 1880s, Haiti had been 'Americanized', and was incorporated with the former Dominican Republic as the Territory of Hispaniola....
Chapter Twelve: The Political See-Saw of late 19th Century America
The Emancipation laws threw the Politics of the 1880s and 1890s into disarray. The move caught the Whig party, which had been growing more strident on slavery issues under Birney, by surprise....The Whig Party, now renamed Liberty on the recommendation of President Birney, was rocked by an even more unexpected event, the assassination of David Birney in July 1881 by Charles Julius Guiteau, a disgruntled office-seeker. Vice-President Roscoe Conkling was subsequently sworn in as President....In 1882, the Democrats retook the House in an upset victory, and then in 1884 Democratic Party Candidate Grover Cleveland would retake the Presidency for the Democrats...Over the next two decades, possession of the Houses of Congress and the Presidency would shift back and forth, as the Whig Party fractured between former abolitionists still sympathetic to the living conditions of freedmen, and the immigrant block who wished for them to remain in the South and not trouble the growing labor movement in the North. The first branch, mostly Birney loyalists, retook the name Liberty Party, and for a time captured a significant minority of seats in the Congress, mostly from New England and the West. The immigrant branch retained the name Whig Party, and kept control of most of the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states. The Whigs also made inroads into the South, especially in Appalachia and the Midwest, where the Plantation Aristocracy who ruled the South were less appreciated. The Liberty and Whig Parties jointly nominated Presidential candidates twice in this time period, the only two times they could retake the Executive Mansion from the Democrats, but both times the alliance did not last long. It was only with the ascendence of William McKinley in the end of the Century that the Party reunited, retaining the name Liberty, but to all intents and purposes now dominated by the Whig branch.
An Aside: Egypt
Egypt ITTL does not go whole hog on loans to develop its cotton trade in the 1860s since there is no American Civil War, so while there is no cotton boom, there is also no cotton bust. In general, this means that the country is on more stable economic footing going into the 1870s. Isma'il's spending will still drive the nation into serious debt, but at a slower, delayed pace. The Egyptian shares in the Suez Canal will not be sold in 1875 which triggered more direct European intervention.
However, Isma'il is still driving his nation deeper and deeper into debt.....
Chapter Thirteen: Hawai'i
New England Congregationalist missionaries had arrived in the islands of Hawai'i in 1820, and within a few short years managed to convert the Kingdom to Protestant Christianity. Over the next 70 years, more Americans followed those missionaries to the islands to found business interests, and formed a significant pressure group on the King of Hawai'i. When Lili'uokalani ascended to the throne, she attempted to reverse many of the concessions made to these Americans, which prompted her overthrow. By the end of the 19th Century, the American Hawai'ians had persuaded the United States to annex the former Kingdom as a US territory.
1884: Grover Cleveland becomes first Democrat elected President since Stephen Douglass in the 1860s. Serves one term before being defeated by the Whig/Liberty fusion candidate in 1888.
I've done some expansion on the Chapter Twelve entry. President Birney is assassinated in 1881 by the OTL assassin of Garfield, Charles Julius Guiteau. Guiteau was a nutcase born before the POD, unaffected by most of the changes in the timeline, and pretty much a guided missile ready to kill a President by 1881. I've made Roscoe Conkling his VP and successor, who is then beaten in 1884 by Cleveland.
Liberty/Whig Party Candidate John Sherman was elected President of the US in 1888, only to be defeated in 1892 by Democratic Candidate Fitzhugh Lee.
William McKinley will become President in 1896, and serves out two full terms. By 1904 the party has completely reunited under the name Liberty Party.
The beginning of the 20th century will see the ascendency of the generation born after the POD....
Chapter Fourteen: The MACC
In the latter quarter of the 19th century, inspired by the Suez and concerned about the French efforts to build a canal in the Panama isthmus of Columbia, a consortium of American and Mexican business tycoons formed to start their own canal project, the Mexican-American Canal Company, or as it was popularly known, the MACC.
The Mexican backers were all from the upper California region, whose business interests would benefit from direct shipment from the Caribbean to the Pacific, bypassing the overland portage routes. They lobbied the Mexican government to advance the project in Nicaragua.
Support in the United States was much more widespread, and the United States provided most of the financial backing for the project, as a shorter route from US states in the Caribbean to the American Pacific Northwest was of obvious economic value to the nation.
The project itself was fraught with hardships. The MACC was both delighted and daunted by the French failure in Columbia. However, the project did persevere, with the Nicaraguan Canal opening in 1910.
Geopolitics by 1900:
Canada doesn't have the Oregon Country, but has gained Alaska.
The US has all of the Oregon Country, Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. Doesn't have the Republic of Texas and Mexican Cession.
Republic of Texas, pretty much as it was.
Mexico still has the Mexican Cession, with by this point the Pacific Coast fairly Mexicanized and Catholicized, though with a heavy infusion of American attitude. Mormonism dominates in the North, and is a bit of an odd man out in Mexico. The New Mexico area has a significant minority of Catholic Blacks.
The Spanish still hold their pre-SAM Pacific possessions. Lost their Caribbean possessions much earlier.
Egypt is still in hock to the Europeans, but is slightly more independent of Britain than it was by this time OTL.
And here's another.
Also, Panama is remaining Columbian.
Nothing, actually. The US no longer has the free silver issue to deal with, since the Comestock and other big silver mines are in Mexico.
So the real question is what do the Mexicans do about it? I tend to think they will give into Free Silver, debasing their currency in relation to the US, but I'm willing to hear other thoughts on this.
Thanks for asking, though. I was going to bring that up.
I probably should have used devalue instead. At the time, almost all other countries were on the Gold Standard. If they were to allow free minting of all that silver they were digging up, and peg the value of their currency to silver as well, it would cause signifcant inflation and weaker currency compared to other nations.
Been thinking about the dawn of the 20th century.
By 1904, we're 60 years from the POD in 1844. The people who will be making the decisions will, mostly have been born and raised in the alternate timeline.
Assuming technological progression remains more or less similar to our own (not unreasonable), then by the end of the first decade, the Dreadnought style of Battleship will be making an appearance.
After long thought, I suspect that regardless of the trigger, this will be a signal for a young power like Germany to try and challenge the old man of the sea, Britain.
I suspect by 1920, there will be war in Europe....
Otto Von Bismarck will have a remarkably similar career to our timeline, and will remain chancellor of a united Germany until his death in 1898.
By this time, there is a Wilhelm II as Kaiser of Germany, but he is not the same as OTL's Wilhelm.
William McKinley will remain in office until 1904 (no assassination), having re-unified the Liberty Party (former Whigs) under his leadership.
A World War will still likely break out, this time in 1918.
Japan's opening to the West will only slightly delay modernization, and by the 1890s it shouldn't be noticable anymore compared to OTL.
Sino-Japanese War still more or less the same.
Probably Russo-Japanese War as well.
And I think by 1910, we see a Spanish-Japanese War with Japan grabbing the Phillippines, Guam, etc. as well as most of the islands that the Spanish sold to Germany OTL. This will be the war that really makes the Western Powers nervous....
As I said, I think we're still going to see a big war by 1918. France on one side and Germany on another seem almost inevitable given the conflict over Alsace-Lorraine. Given that after Bismarck and then the creation of the Dreadnought (will be some different name here, I imagine) Germany is likely to start challenging the British in naval terms, probably see the UK and French again on the same side. Probably A-H is allied with Germany. Overall, line-up thus far looking very similar to OTL....but I wonder where Japan will fall.
As I mentioned before, there will by 1918 be a Kaiser named Wilhelm II (not OTL's Wilhelm) on the German throne, and what I didn't say before is that there will be an Emperor on the throne of Austria-Hungary by the name of Rudolf (again, not OTL's Rudolf).
The early decades of the twentieth century saw a dramatic transformation of the nation of Texas.
Long seen as a romanticized setting of lonesome Cowboys and brave Cherokee, the Texas economy almost entirely scraped by on the cattle trade. For the entire 19th century it was the poorest nation in North America. Mired in debt but determined to persevere, the nation somehow weathered the lean years of the 19th century.
But with the beginning of the 20th century, Texas was to see a boom like none it had ever known with the discovery of massive oil reserves. The oil wealth would fund Texan development for the next fifty years and beyond. Within just a generation, it went from one of the poorest per capita nations in North America to one of the richest.
The advent of the Nicaraguan Canal in the early twentieth century also helped to pump much needed funds into that Central American nation, and put it on the map in terms of international affairs. However, it also made certain that it would remain in the eye of the Americans and Mexicans for the rest of the 20th Century.
War once again breaks out in Europe in 1918, the precise year predicted by Bismarck before his death.
Couple thoughts...aviation is four years more advanced than OTL outbreak of the war, though in peacetime this may not be much more. However, I think we might see monoplanes in the war before it ends. Thoughts?
Also, with four more years to tinker with automobiles, I think the development of the tank (will have to have some other name ITTL) will go in terms of introduction in the war much the same, but with a slightly more powerful engine, methinks.
There will be more dreadnoughts (need a name for them ITTL) at the start of the war than OTL given the delay in the war's onset, but production rates will likely swamp that (at least for the British) by war's end. If there are more dreadnoughts to start with, though, are we more likely to see a major naval engagement in the beginning of the war?
Trench and gas warfare much the same.
Okay, so in 1910 after a Japanese ship crew were harshly dealt with while in Manilla, Japan invades the Phillippines, beginning the Spanish-Japanese War. While many in the West had noted the continued decline of Spain as a World Power, they were still shocked with how easily and utterly an Asiatic power defeated them on the high seas. While a formal peace was not declared until 1912, by the end of the first year of the war Japanese victory was a fact on the ground in the Pacific. Britain, Russia, and the US would watch the Japanese very carefully from this point.
Okay, so the Japanese get all the Spanish Pacific possessions, including the Phillippines and all that stuff they would have gotten from the Germans at the end of World War I.
So at the beginning of the war in 1918, the Germans have
German New Guinea (Deutsch-Neuguinea, today Papua-New-Guinea; 1884) AKA Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the Bismarck Archipelago (Bismarck-Archipel):
German Solomon Islands or Northern Solomon Islands (Salomonen or Nördliche Salomon-Inseln, 1885)
Bougainville (Bougainville-Insel, 1888)
Nauru (1888)
German Marshall Islands (Marshallinseln; 1885)
The Japanese on the other hand have
The Phillippines (1910)
Guam (1910)
The Caroline Islands (1910)
Mariana Islands (1910)
Palau (1910)
ITTL, with tuberculosis butterflied awa, Tsar Nicholas II will live to take the Russian throne, have children (half-siblings to OTL's Tsar Nicholas II), and his son, Tsar Alexander III will be Tsar by the turn of the century. Probably won't marry Alexandra.
With a different Tsar, and to keep the timeline developed thus far consistant, I'm going to go with a slightly modified version of the Sino-Japanese wars (which wouldn't be exactly OTL anyway) and have the Russians and Japanese partition Manchuria, though the Japanese aren't particularly pleased with the arrangement.
I have decided against the Japanese taking Hainan during the Sino-Japanese war, though.
The division of Manchuria will follow roughly the OTL division of spheres of interest, since there is historical precedent for the interests of the two nations in this sort of division. It might be overly generous to the Japanese ITTL, but recall that the Russians also get Port Arthur.
Question: What is/are the big port cities along the Canadian West Coast? Juneau? Any others?
