English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline

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Part 82: Russian Civil War
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Part 82: Russian Civil War​

    The Russian Civil War officially started in the Fall of 1917, but fighting effectively started in the Spring of 1918. The Royalist Army was based out of St. Petersburg, while the Republicans were based out of Moscow. Being such a huge country, the Russian Civil War was going to take years, and there was no way that Russia was going to keep all of its territory. Sure enough, the area south of the Caucasus Mountains split off, forming the new countries of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Kartvelia (Georgia), as did the region of Turkestan in Central Asia. There were other ethnic revolts in Russia as well, but those were put down by one of the sides in the war. In the Far East, China retook Port Arthur (although they decided to refrain from taking the area east of the Amur) and Japan seized Sakhalin.

    Anyway, back to Russia proper. The Republicans tended to be strongest in Urban centers, while the Royalists dominated in the countryside, so one of the top Republican objectives was to get control of rural areas and key transport routes like railways and rivers. Fortunately for the Republicans, their control of urban centers also led to them having the upper hand in terms of industrial capacity, meaning that they could pump out more and better supplies than the Royalists could. However, the Royalists had more of Russia’s top generals, which meant that all in all, it was a pretty evenly matched fight.

    Now, because I suck at writing about military combat and I’m not too knowledgeable on OTL’s Russian Civil War, I’m going to briefly summarize what happened. Through a series of smart strategizing, dysfunction on the other side and sheer good luck, the Republicans ended up coming out on top. Most of Russia’s major cities were seized over the course of 1919 and 1920, and the last major Royalist pockets in Siberia were wiped out in 1921. By the summer of 1922, the Republicans were closing in on the capital of St. Petersburg. By the time the Republicans had reached the outskirts of the city, the Czar had realized that it was over and that he had to escape in order to not be executed. He privately negotiated with the King of Sweden to be granted temporary asylum while he would search for a place of permanent exile. The Czar, his family and his court escaped to Helsingfors (Helsinki) and contacted the opposition leadership to officially surrender. Thus, the Russian Empire was officially dead, replaced by the new Russian Republic, and while it would be a long, hard road for Russia to regain her former glory, the future looked full of promise for the new Republic, but first it had to sort out its own internal divisions, and things could get ugly.
     
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Europe After Russian Civil War.png

    Europe in 1925
    Asia Map After Russian Civil War.png

    Asia in 1925
     
    Part 83: The Fifth Island
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Part 83: The Fifth Island​

    Alright, I got a suggestion to talk about Japan, and I haven’t done one on Japan itself before, so let’s get this going, shall we?

    By the 1920s, it had been a good 70 years since Japan was dragged out of isolationism by the British and Americans, and a whole lot had happened during that time. Japan had gone from a traditional feudal system to an industrial powerhouse, had built up a strong, modern military and was a growing power in the Far East. The population of Japan was about 55 million in the 1920s, most of whom lived in Honshu, the main island.

    However, as I’ve mentioned in a previous update, many Japanese had emigrated, mainly to the Commonwealth of America and Australia (although limited by a quota of 10,000 and 1,000 per year respectively). Meanwhile, Japan also wanted some colonies to serve as an escape valve for prospective emigrants. While they did have the Bonin Islands, Chishima Islands and Otorishima, none of those were anywhere close to a good location for a settler colony (especially the latter, which is only a few square miles).

    Then came the Russian Civil War. Japan had looked with envy at the Russian Far East, particularly at the island of Sakhalin, or Karafuto as the Japanese called it. There had been Japanese exploration of the island as far back as the Late 17th century, and the Japanese had come to view it as a logical extension of their nation. The island was about a third the size of Honshu, filled with natural resources such as coal and petroleum, and very lightly inhabited, as the native population was only a few thousand and there were only 50,000 or so Russian settlers, many of whom were convicts.

    So, in 1918 while the war was raging, the Japanese took the opportunity to conquer Sakhalin/Karafuto while the Russians were busy killing each other. After the declaration of war, the Japanese sent a small force to land on the island, while the navy could keep the Russian Pacific Fleet from retaking it. Soon, the main Russian settlements on the island had fallen, the Russian settlers were repatriated to the mainland, and Karafuto had become the fifth island of Japan.

    Now the Japanese government had to find a way to bring people to this chilly island in the north. The aforementioned natural resources would draw a fair deal of settlers, but that wasn’t enough to populate the island. So, the government offered tax incentives to lure settlers to the island, most of whom came from Hokkaido and northern Honshu (or I’d assume so, considering that those areas have relatively cold winters). Most of the settlers to the island settled in the south, which had a relatively mild climate (“mild” as in Minnesota instead of Alaska).

    The capital of the island, Toyohara, grew into a decent sized city, with some other towns like Ochiai, Otomari, Maoka, Esutoru and Shikuka growing to a reasonable size. The colder north of the island was much less inhabited, with only a few towns like Nioikawa and Waruimizu, connected by a lone railroad. However, this was the area where most of the island’s oil reserves were located, which in and of itself made the acquisition of the island for a resource-strapped nation like Japan. By the middle of the 20th Century, the population had grown to around half a million, and it had gone from a simple colony to a fully integrated part of the country.

    I’m sorry that I spend so much time focusing on Sakhalin, but alternate territorial changes are something I’m really interested in, and that’s the most notable difference between TTL’s Japan and OTL’s at this point in time (we’ll see if there’s a Third Global War). Give suggestions as to what you guys want to see me talk about, and until then, have a good one.
     
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    • Odinson

    Odinson

    After the global destruction that has already happened, I would hope the major countries would have tried to find a way to prevent other major wars outside of interventions
     

    ClockworkDawn

    Gabingston said:
    Do you guys think there will be a Third Global War at some point?
    Click to expand...
    There does seem to be some bad blood here. La Floride has been crushed time and time again by the Commonwealth, and Japan has their own conflicts with Russia. Perhaps not a Third Global War, but a series of significant regional conflicts does seem possible.

    I would love to see a post on what's going on in Floride after the war? Perhaps they begin industrializing? I could see a flowering of counter culture a la Weimar, after the disaster upon disaster the existing order of the day has led them into.
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Another question: When do you think Decolonization will happen? The New World has already gotten independence, as has British Australia, so the Dutch East Indies, and the British and French Indian colonies will probably see increasing demands for independence.
     

    PGSBHurricane

    Gabingston said:
    Another question: When do you think Decolonization will happen? The New World has already gotten independence, as has British Australia, so the Dutch East Indies, and the British and French Indian colonies will probably see increasing demands for independence.
    Click to expand...
    If there is a Third Global War, I would say it’s ending should coincide with the beginning of a de-colonization movement.
     

    ClockworkDawn

    Gabingston said:
    Another question: When do you think Decolonization will happen? The New World has already gotten independence, as has British Australia, so the Dutch East Indies, and the British and French Indian colonies will probably see increasing demands for independence.
    Click to expand...
    Colonization began its end after the staggering costs of World War 2. If we see a Third Global War, that'll likely inflict those costs. Same goes for those possible regional wars mentioned previously.

    Barring those... We could see a decolonization movement begin on its own, as costs mount and natives become more set on independence. It's possible that certain powers might hold onto more bits than they did in our world, without a great power such as the Soviet Union or the United States begins breathing down their neck. The Anglo-Americans of this timeline might take up the role of anti-colonialism, as a rhetorical stick to beat their foes with (and a genuine moral turn around), a la anti-slavery in otl.
     
    Part 84: The Empire
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    • Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Part 84: The Empire​

    Coming out of the Second Global War, the British Empire was back in a position of dominance as the most powerful European empire. France had been weakened by the war significantly, Russia was busy tearing itself apart and neither of the German states were powerful enough by themselves to make any sort of challenge. Add in the overwhelming might of their American cousins, and it was apparent that Britannia truly ruled the waves.

    However, cracks were starting to show. After the successful independence movements in Australia and Patagonia, nationalist movements in The Indian Subcontinent, The Philippines and Natal began to grow in size and importance. This was compounded by the battering the British had taken during the war, as the loss of millions of men in the battlefields of the Rhineland and Low Countries severely damaged morale, even in victory. Nationalism was especially prevalent in India, as the population was both massive (over 200 million by this point) and had less in common with Britain then either Natal (a large white population) or The Philippines (Christianity, albeit different sects), although there was still the question on whether to have a united India or to divide it along Ethnic and Religious lines. It was becoming abundantly clear that the British could not hold on to their Empire permanently, especially when the population in some of their colonies dwarfed that of the motherland. Still, that time had not come, and the British still held firm control on their globe-spanning empire upon which the sun never set.
     
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    • mrcubfan415

    Nice update as always! BTW, would you be willing to edit the list in the Floridian Provinces post to include what color each state is on the map? I know you made clear which province was which in post #757, but it’d still be nice to not have to scroll up and down to figure out which province is which :p
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    My next update is going to be on France. I'm thinking about differences between OTL's France and TTL's France, as well as things that might happen after the defeat in the Second Global War.
    Differences:
    • France ITTL would have a larger population. France's birth rate IOTL's 19th Century was significantly lower than in most other European countries (TFR of 3.5 in France, as compared to 5 in Germany and Italy or 4.5 in Britain), although those numbers are reversed in the present day (1.9 in France, 1.8 in Britain, 1.6 in Germany and 1.4 in Italy). Now, France's fertility rate was already lower than in other European countries before the Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, but land reforms and cultural shifts resulting from those periods resulted in a significantly lower fertility rate throughout the 19th Century. In lieu of those things, I'd expect France to have a slightly higher fertility rate throughout the 19th Century (probably in the 4-4.5 range), although that would be somewhat balanced by higher emigration (mainly to La Floride and Terre-Bourbon), so I'd expect a French population of around 50 Million by 1900, 10 million larger than IOTL.
    • Because of a larger colonial empire bringing in more resources from overseas (cotton from La Floride and Southern India for example) and the aforementioned higher fertility rates, I'd expect cities like Bordeaux, Rouen and Nantes to be quite a bit larger than IOTL.
    • France by this point in time has become a Constitutional Monarchy, although the King would still hold some powers. With that said, none of the countries that lost OTL's WW1 had their prewar governments survive intact (Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire fell apart etc.), so the future of the French Monarchy would be uncertain. Might the king abdicate? I don't know.
    • Either way, I'd expect France to go through some turbulence after the war, although not a Civil War or Revolution as in Russia. I'd expect a lot of Frenchmen to emigrate to La Floride or Terre-Bourbon after it is reacquired by France.
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    Here's the vote so far:
    Orleans: 5
    No abdication: 4
    Other Bourbon: 2
    In the French tradition, I'm thinking of holding another poll, this time just with the No Abdication and House of Orleans options, since no one has a majority. How does that sound?
     
    Gabingston

    Gabingston

    On another note, I wonder what happens with Saint-Domingue/Haiti ITTL? The Haitian Revolution never happens ITTL, but there's no way that the massive slave system could be maintained there long-term. It was both the most profitable colony for any European colonial power, but also a living hell for most of the inhabitants, and it's probably a powderkeg. However, I've already gone through the entire 19th Century when a slave revolt was most likely, and even without the Haitian Revolution forcing the colonial powers to reconsider slavery in the Caribbean, I don't see slavery surviving all the way to 1920.
     
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