Who says Germany is winning in the CEW? Germany has to fight a two front war with France and Austria, while at the same time, the French army is undergoing military reforms that incorporate concepts of combined arms into its doctrine. I’ll say that France has a better chance at winning
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
He didn't outright say it. But the subtle implication is all I need to get giddy about the idea and I won't have that taken away from me P:
I think the fact we know the French empire collapses and The French State rises would imply that if they dont loose they take one hell of a beating for a pretty Pyrrhic victory, its gonna get ugly
Well Austria also have to fight a two side war(Germany and Italy), and Russia and Britain can join at any time (Not that they are likely to join, there are reasons why this war is called CEW, not Great War or World war)
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Now that I think of it, that will be a pretty decent idea. China and Japan, instead of being arch nemesis, team up TTL to rout out colonialism in Asia once and for all,
For bonus points, it turns out that this entire TL has been an effort to do the backstory of Heinlein's "Sixth Column" including Pan-Asians and vortex pistols.
(I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do a backstory for "Sixth Column".)
Well given that Kaiser Heinrich is called the 'Goldkaiser' and not 'the kaiser who lost us the war' i think it's reasonably clear what ends up happening
plus the french empire is explicitly stated to be falling pretty soon
Plus the Austrian Empire doesn’t exactly have its act together. Between the state of the army and divisions between Vienna and Hungary, it is by far the weaker of the great powers. French money has helped to modernize the economy but it might not be strong enough to withstand a long war.
That will definitely be more the case going forward insofar as the 20th century is going to see the decline of France as a major power. The fall of the Second Empire is basically the end of the golden age. If I were to guess the instability and chaos of the Third Republic ushers in the French State.
Long Branch Conference
"...fresh sea air. Six Presidents before him had summered at Long Branch to the point that it was known as the "summer capital" in the late 19th century, and the small Episcopal church where all had at some point attended private or public services is today known as the Church of Seven Presidents. By the mores of 1915 politics, Long Branch was the ideal place for Hughes, his War Cabinet and Congressional and military leaders to convene ahead of the end of the war.
Six cottages in a small cluster near the beach were the accommodations, and Hughes wound up being the only man to enjoy a summer cottage to himself. Also there were Root, Stimson, and Ballinger, and Senators Kern, Turner and Cabot Lodge, in order to represent the input of the three men who would be most responsible for shepherding any peace agreement with the Confederacy through the Senate. From the military side, Bliss and March both made the trip, as well as the new heads of Army Command Ohio and Susquehanna, John Pershing and Michael Lenihan, respectively, as well as Admirals Knight, Sims and the heroes of the hour, Reggie Belknap and William Rodgers, as well as their staffs, who stayed in the city's inns and boardwalk hotels.
The spirit of the Long Branch Conference was one of coordination and collaboration (though Speaker Clark and House Minority Leader Mann, excluded from the affair, would of course disagree), built upon the surge of optimism in Philadelphia upon the news of the collapse of Nashville's lines and the sinking of the Confederate Combined Fleet at Hilton Head as well as Chile's surrender further off, which boded well for Argentina (the Argentine ambassador was too ill to attend) in their two-front war in South America. There was generally a feeling that the war, having already seen its tide turn upon the Susquehanna and the breakthroughs in Kentucky the year before, was now definitively in its home stretch. The purpose of the conference then was to agree upon the rough contours of how the Army and Navy, along with civilian authority, would bring about the end of the war and what a potential peace might look like, which was more the focus of Root and the three Senators.
Hughes bounced back and forth between these poles, hosting full group meetings with wide-ranging agendas and then smaller discussions with narrower focii. By the end of the six days in Long Branch, he was physically and mentally exhausted and looking forward to getting some rest, but felt like its purpose had been achieved. In broad strokes, the agreement to press aggressively the offensive against the Confederacy and bring about an "unequivocal victory" was continued, and Root expressed openness for the first time at the nudging of Kern and Turner to accept potential Mexican overtures about their early exit from the war to "kick the legs out from under Dixie." In that sense, the discussion around Mexico become one of what kind of settlement the United States would accept with Emperor Maximilian's regime, which was now headed by a previous non-entity in Prime Minister Francisco Carbajal who it was thought had been installed due to his more moderate views on a potential peace agreement. [1]
The terms of a potential settlement with the Confederacy were much less clear. Turner, himself a famous hawk, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Lodge on a "maximalist" end to the war that would see terms even harsher than those imposed upon Chile at Root's insistence. Territorial concessions such annexing the Arizona Territory, parts of northern and western Virginia, demilitarizing the Mississippi and making permanent access to New Orleans were just the start; strict limits on the size of the Confederate Army and Navy and a unilateral right to intervention in Confederate politics "in case of national endangerment" were red lines for the men once known as the Hawk's Nest. Even Kern proposed that the Confederacy be reduced to an economic colony, a free market for American goods that would pay ruinous reparations and export raw materials at Philadelphia's behest.
The issue of slavery was trickier. All men at the table were in agreement that it was a grievous moral sin and needed to be eradicated from the war, as the Emancipation Order had proclaimed. Most of them were also quick to admit, however, that the Emancipation Order was just a piece of paper and that in practice enforcing it would be hugely impossible. Lodge's suggestion of a decades-long occupation that included land reform, literacy campaigns and imposing a ring of Dixie-born, American-resident Black officials to run the Confederacy "until the venom of the slaveocracy has been bled from its body politic" saw more than a few eyebrows raised, especially considering the otherwise infamously right-wing source. It was Lenihan's idea, raised in one of the joint all-hands discussions, that eventually got the most purchase - weapons would simply find themselves behind enemy lines in the hands of slaves, both to bring about a quicker collapse of the enemy's society but also to help freedmen defend themselves in the aftermath, and the United States would simply improvise from there. It was a temporary solution, but it would work for now.
The only question now was how to bring it about..."
- American Charlemagne: The Trials and Triumphs of Charles Evans Hughes
"...letters to Helen [2] from Long Branch were a key part of Pershing's posthumous biographies and even today shed light on the personalities at play and, of course, Pershing's typically laconic and skeptical attitude towards others that was often quite cutting.
It would be an understatement to say that Pershing came away impressed with his interlocutors at Long Branch. He sensed in Lenihan a certain resentment, as his colleague had desired to keep pressing the advantage in the Midlands theater where he had made his name rather than take over in Virginia, and he didn't think that March gave Bliss particularly good counsel. The less said about the "pretentious" Navy men the better, particularly Sims, whom Pershing's icy description of as a vainglorious, narrow-minded New England aristocrat presaged Sims' disastrous and divisive campaign for the Presidency nine years later. Civilian leadership did not get off scot-free, either; Pershing was complimentary towards Hughes, whom he thought brilliant but perhaps a bit too aloof considering the circumstances, but other than Henry Stimson whom he found incredibly well-prepared and knowledgeable he was dismissive of all the others. Root "is a public servant of great repute, particularly for his reforms of the War Department twenty years ago, but in the end an administrator first, second and last, in his advancing age lacking creativity and flexibility as he holds his experience up as an end to itself." Of the Senators present, Pershing knocked the Democrats John Kern and George Turner as "men of a certain political buoyancy, well-meaning but unserious, their ideas unworkable and too quick to express doubt." Henry Cabot Lodge received the worst of his ire, however - "a temperamental fool convinced of his own brilliance as a statesman, rigidly conservative in his ways as he expresses a program so radical that it took effort not to laugh it out of the room."
These were the characters with whom Pershing had to debate the strategy that would win the war and bring their desired peace forward. Pershing's advantage at Long Branch was that Bliss took his advice seriously (as in the case where he cashiered Charles Treat in part at Pershing's behest) and their longstanding personal and professional relationship meant that Pershing's ideas carried enormous water compared to Lenihan, who had developed a reputation as a bold general but one not as attuned to the political game.
Part of why Lenihan disliked Pershing so was that Lenihan correctly deduced that his offensives in Virginia were not the main event of the war, which everyone agreed would by and large be won in the Midlands. The question was simply how to do so - the Confederate Army, after their defeat at Nashville, had nonetheless evacuated most of their artillery successfully regrouped in the Eastern Rim and along the Duck River, excellent defensive positions from which to arrest a breakout from the Nashville Basin. While Confederate forces along the Tennessee River had withdrawn southwards to avoid being placed in a salient between Memphis and Nashville, the numbers available to the enemy in increasingly mountainous Appalachian terrain were stark and Pershing's Army Command Ohio was exhausted after the ten-month siege, even with fresh reinforcements. His demand to regroup and rebuild strength before attacking was not popular, but eventually granted.
Root and Lodge teamed up to suggest that Pershing take the "easy" route - punching south across the Tennessee somewhere in the vicinity of Huntsville or Decatur, Alabama, towards Birmingham and the constellation of industrial towns around it. Birmingham was after all the most important production center of Confederate steel and the western anchor of Dixie's factory belt. Lenihan expressed some skepticism at this idea, and Pershing appreciated him for it; marching to Birmingham would not solve the problem of Atlanta, the largest industrial city in the Confederacy and a rail hub that connected north to south and east to west. Yes, less steel was made there, but it was the beating heart of the Confederate economy and seizing it would cut the Confederate States in half. Attacking it would require attacking via Chattanooga, also an important factory town, and would have the secondary effect of helping to knock out access the mines of Knoxville. It was clear to Pershing what was the superior strategic target, and the only argument against it was that it would be a much more difficult campaign with casualties considerably closer to the bloodbath at Nashville than what a march on Birmingham would entail.
Everybody is in broad agreement what Pershing's response to that complaint (from Lodge, of course): "Then we shall have another Nashville. And another, and another, until the enemy is broken in body and soul, until their railroads are tied around trees, until their farms burnt and their crops torn from their fields, their horses and cows shot, their slaves liberated, all while the skies of Dixie are black with smoke. Only then will they stop, and only then will we have peace. There are few things I would not give for peace, but peace from this craven, this vile of a foe must be taken - it cannot simply be demanded."
The remarkably bleak assessment of the Confederacy's commitment to fighting and what kind of scorched earth strategy it would require to bring them to their knees apparently swayed the room, though Stimson and Bliss - the voices that mattered most - agreeing that the United States in the summer of 1915 could not yet do both offensives while keeping up operations in Virginia certainly helped. With that, Pershing had drawn his line on where he would go and what he would do - his mission was Atlanta, and Atlanta would vault him from mere general to the highest echelons of American military fame..."
- Pershing
[1] Our friend Henry Cabot Lodge, shall we say, is probably a good deal less open to this idea.
[2] Helen Pershing not being at the Presidio in the summer of 1915 means her - as well as the three Pershing daughters - don't all die in a freak fire
Six cottages in a small cluster near the beach were the accommodations, and Hughes wound up being the only man to enjoy a summer cottage to himself. Also there were Root, Stimson, and Ballinger, and Senators Kern, Turner and Cabot Lodge, in order to represent the input of the three men who would be most responsible for shepherding any peace agreement with the Confederacy through the Senate. From the military side, Bliss and March both made the trip, as well as the new heads of Army Command Ohio and Susquehanna, John Pershing and Michael Lenihan, respectively, as well as Admirals Knight, Sims and the heroes of the hour, Reggie Belknap and William Rodgers, as well as their staffs, who stayed in the city's inns and boardwalk hotels.
The spirit of the Long Branch Conference was one of coordination and collaboration (though Speaker Clark and House Minority Leader Mann, excluded from the affair, would of course disagree), built upon the surge of optimism in Philadelphia upon the news of the collapse of Nashville's lines and the sinking of the Confederate Combined Fleet at Hilton Head as well as Chile's surrender further off, which boded well for Argentina (the Argentine ambassador was too ill to attend) in their two-front war in South America. There was generally a feeling that the war, having already seen its tide turn upon the Susquehanna and the breakthroughs in Kentucky the year before, was now definitively in its home stretch. The purpose of the conference then was to agree upon the rough contours of how the Army and Navy, along with civilian authority, would bring about the end of the war and what a potential peace might look like, which was more the focus of Root and the three Senators.
Hughes bounced back and forth between these poles, hosting full group meetings with wide-ranging agendas and then smaller discussions with narrower focii. By the end of the six days in Long Branch, he was physically and mentally exhausted and looking forward to getting some rest, but felt like its purpose had been achieved. In broad strokes, the agreement to press aggressively the offensive against the Confederacy and bring about an "unequivocal victory" was continued, and Root expressed openness for the first time at the nudging of Kern and Turner to accept potential Mexican overtures about their early exit from the war to "kick the legs out from under Dixie." In that sense, the discussion around Mexico become one of what kind of settlement the United States would accept with Emperor Maximilian's regime, which was now headed by a previous non-entity in Prime Minister Francisco Carbajal who it was thought had been installed due to his more moderate views on a potential peace agreement. [1]
The terms of a potential settlement with the Confederacy were much less clear. Turner, himself a famous hawk, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Lodge on a "maximalist" end to the war that would see terms even harsher than those imposed upon Chile at Root's insistence. Territorial concessions such annexing the Arizona Territory, parts of northern and western Virginia, demilitarizing the Mississippi and making permanent access to New Orleans were just the start; strict limits on the size of the Confederate Army and Navy and a unilateral right to intervention in Confederate politics "in case of national endangerment" were red lines for the men once known as the Hawk's Nest. Even Kern proposed that the Confederacy be reduced to an economic colony, a free market for American goods that would pay ruinous reparations and export raw materials at Philadelphia's behest.
The issue of slavery was trickier. All men at the table were in agreement that it was a grievous moral sin and needed to be eradicated from the war, as the Emancipation Order had proclaimed. Most of them were also quick to admit, however, that the Emancipation Order was just a piece of paper and that in practice enforcing it would be hugely impossible. Lodge's suggestion of a decades-long occupation that included land reform, literacy campaigns and imposing a ring of Dixie-born, American-resident Black officials to run the Confederacy "until the venom of the slaveocracy has been bled from its body politic" saw more than a few eyebrows raised, especially considering the otherwise infamously right-wing source. It was Lenihan's idea, raised in one of the joint all-hands discussions, that eventually got the most purchase - weapons would simply find themselves behind enemy lines in the hands of slaves, both to bring about a quicker collapse of the enemy's society but also to help freedmen defend themselves in the aftermath, and the United States would simply improvise from there. It was a temporary solution, but it would work for now.
The only question now was how to bring it about..."
- American Charlemagne: The Trials and Triumphs of Charles Evans Hughes
"...letters to Helen [2] from Long Branch were a key part of Pershing's posthumous biographies and even today shed light on the personalities at play and, of course, Pershing's typically laconic and skeptical attitude towards others that was often quite cutting.
It would be an understatement to say that Pershing came away impressed with his interlocutors at Long Branch. He sensed in Lenihan a certain resentment, as his colleague had desired to keep pressing the advantage in the Midlands theater where he had made his name rather than take over in Virginia, and he didn't think that March gave Bliss particularly good counsel. The less said about the "pretentious" Navy men the better, particularly Sims, whom Pershing's icy description of as a vainglorious, narrow-minded New England aristocrat presaged Sims' disastrous and divisive campaign for the Presidency nine years later. Civilian leadership did not get off scot-free, either; Pershing was complimentary towards Hughes, whom he thought brilliant but perhaps a bit too aloof considering the circumstances, but other than Henry Stimson whom he found incredibly well-prepared and knowledgeable he was dismissive of all the others. Root "is a public servant of great repute, particularly for his reforms of the War Department twenty years ago, but in the end an administrator first, second and last, in his advancing age lacking creativity and flexibility as he holds his experience up as an end to itself." Of the Senators present, Pershing knocked the Democrats John Kern and George Turner as "men of a certain political buoyancy, well-meaning but unserious, their ideas unworkable and too quick to express doubt." Henry Cabot Lodge received the worst of his ire, however - "a temperamental fool convinced of his own brilliance as a statesman, rigidly conservative in his ways as he expresses a program so radical that it took effort not to laugh it out of the room."
These were the characters with whom Pershing had to debate the strategy that would win the war and bring their desired peace forward. Pershing's advantage at Long Branch was that Bliss took his advice seriously (as in the case where he cashiered Charles Treat in part at Pershing's behest) and their longstanding personal and professional relationship meant that Pershing's ideas carried enormous water compared to Lenihan, who had developed a reputation as a bold general but one not as attuned to the political game.
Part of why Lenihan disliked Pershing so was that Lenihan correctly deduced that his offensives in Virginia were not the main event of the war, which everyone agreed would by and large be won in the Midlands. The question was simply how to do so - the Confederate Army, after their defeat at Nashville, had nonetheless evacuated most of their artillery successfully regrouped in the Eastern Rim and along the Duck River, excellent defensive positions from which to arrest a breakout from the Nashville Basin. While Confederate forces along the Tennessee River had withdrawn southwards to avoid being placed in a salient between Memphis and Nashville, the numbers available to the enemy in increasingly mountainous Appalachian terrain were stark and Pershing's Army Command Ohio was exhausted after the ten-month siege, even with fresh reinforcements. His demand to regroup and rebuild strength before attacking was not popular, but eventually granted.
Root and Lodge teamed up to suggest that Pershing take the "easy" route - punching south across the Tennessee somewhere in the vicinity of Huntsville or Decatur, Alabama, towards Birmingham and the constellation of industrial towns around it. Birmingham was after all the most important production center of Confederate steel and the western anchor of Dixie's factory belt. Lenihan expressed some skepticism at this idea, and Pershing appreciated him for it; marching to Birmingham would not solve the problem of Atlanta, the largest industrial city in the Confederacy and a rail hub that connected north to south and east to west. Yes, less steel was made there, but it was the beating heart of the Confederate economy and seizing it would cut the Confederate States in half. Attacking it would require attacking via Chattanooga, also an important factory town, and would have the secondary effect of helping to knock out access the mines of Knoxville. It was clear to Pershing what was the superior strategic target, and the only argument against it was that it would be a much more difficult campaign with casualties considerably closer to the bloodbath at Nashville than what a march on Birmingham would entail.
Everybody is in broad agreement what Pershing's response to that complaint (from Lodge, of course): "Then we shall have another Nashville. And another, and another, until the enemy is broken in body and soul, until their railroads are tied around trees, until their farms burnt and their crops torn from their fields, their horses and cows shot, their slaves liberated, all while the skies of Dixie are black with smoke. Only then will they stop, and only then will we have peace. There are few things I would not give for peace, but peace from this craven, this vile of a foe must be taken - it cannot simply be demanded."
The remarkably bleak assessment of the Confederacy's commitment to fighting and what kind of scorched earth strategy it would require to bring them to their knees apparently swayed the room, though Stimson and Bliss - the voices that mattered most - agreeing that the United States in the summer of 1915 could not yet do both offensives while keeping up operations in Virginia certainly helped. With that, Pershing had drawn his line on where he would go and what he would do - his mission was Atlanta, and Atlanta would vault him from mere general to the highest echelons of American military fame..."
- Pershing
[1] Our friend Henry Cabot Lodge, shall we say, is probably a good deal less open to this idea.
[2] Helen Pershing not being at the Presidio in the summer of 1915 means her - as well as the three Pershing daughters - don't all die in a freak fire
The Kaiser relinquishing sole responsibility for appointing a Chancellor is probably the last concession - plenty of other things the advance of SDP would nudge along though.
We’ve met Wu, Yan and some of the Mas so far; the colorful cast in China at this time in history is part of its appeal so we’ll definitely explore their journeys. Not all, but many
What does that even mean
Oooo yes definitely need to touch on this.
I covered a little of the French Orient and it’s Catholic hierarchy/caste system a bit in the previous thread, basically the system benefits locals who convert/marry Frenchmen
A mix of the two are always fun 😜
You’re being very generous in calling me subtle!
That’s a very sound guess
And answered from over in the infobox thread. While they may not fall as far as the CSA, they'll be close.
And if France it reduced it means that they lost, and if they lost (as arguably the strongest member of their alliance), it means that its allies do as well (which at this point are fairly well telegraphed (IMO) to be Denmark, Belgium and Austria Hungary. While Denmark is unlikely to come apart at the seams (I don't think I've *ever* seen a TL where Denmark gets disassembled more than OTL's loss of S-H.), no bets on either Belgium or AH making it out of the war in similar shape...
Big fan of your Bicentennial Man series, I gave this one a month ago, and have been following it closely ever since. Really good stuff, not my favorite period of history but all the background and the attention to detail are really fascinating.
Great chapter. I just hope the Union extracts more than the minimalist territorial objectives outlined. Not taking the Florida Keyes would be an enormous oversight. I think they should also push for large swaths of West Texas. The panhandle portion of OK would be a nice touch as well. Of course, this leaves the issue of Kentucky. Given the volume of blood spilled in crossing the Ohio, I can imagine the Union will want some level of control over the vast majority of the Bluegrass state.
As well, a somewhat sadistic thought has crossed my mind. Perhaps this is two much of a trope, but would it not be fitting for American ships to level Charleston given the city's unique historical symbolism with regard to secession?
As well, a somewhat sadistic thought has crossed my mind. Perhaps this is two much of a trope, but would it not be fitting for American ships to level Charleston given the city's unique historical symbolism with regard to secession?
Don’t give me any ideas… 😈🇸🇪
Thanks! Glad you’re enjoying it and along for the ride!
I have very specific plans for Charleston, though like many Confederate ports it is currently part of the Union’s “render all Dixie harbors unusable” strategy
Additionally, does the Confederate Indian Territory have the same boundaries as OTL Oklahoma? In OTL, it wasn't until much after the Civil War that the two pieces that become Oklahoma were brought together. Additionally, Texas might have wanted back the northern end of its panhandle, the OTL Western Panhandle of Oklahoma. It only gave it up, because land was north of 36'30'' which would have required the state to be a free state...
Unless the Germans are *very* picky in their annexations from Austria Hungary, I don't think the Danes would be the largest non-German speaking ethnicity if they were annexed.
That's something where the CSA reading the USA's mail would actually make a difference. If the CSA knew that there was a plan to render Savannah unusable on a specific date 6 weeks in advance, they *might* be able to do more damage. I'm not sure what resources that the CSA have that would help with preventing surprise attacks on ports, submarines may be able to help, but I'm not sure that aviation has reached that point. If a "make a harbor unusable" effort costs the USN one capital ship per attack, then they might find the strategy unusuable. Though it sort of puts a damper on a march to the sea from Atlanta to Savannah if Savannah has been rendered so unusable that the Union troops can not get supplies there.
When are his corruption scandals coming to light?
Total slap in the face to the House of Representatives here. Hughes needs every friend he can get on the Hill, what with huge chunks of his own party hating him for being too progressive for their tastes. Not to mention they're the ones who control the purse, so this snub is just needless antagonism for zero gain.