American Empires
This post includes spoilers of Harry Turtledove’s Southern Victory series, up to the Settling Accounts series. If you’re interested in reading the series, I don’t think that it will ruin the story for you. Turtledove’s storytelling doesn’t particularly lend itself to surprise endings.
Vox presents thirteen maps of things that never happened. The one to the left is the first one, which involves plans to invade Canada.
We, of course, have very little reason to ever invade Canada. Our only route to incorporation is this one, and at this juncture they’re probably more likely to take from us than we are from them.
Turtledove’s WWI Alliances
With Canada being a part of the UK, of course, they were also among the losers. The biggest losers, in that by the end Canada ceased to exist. With the exception of Quebec**, it was incorporated into the United States. Portions of the Confederacy (including but not limited to what we call West Texas, Oklahoma, and Kentucky) were also taken. Due to the political considerations***, Oklahoma (“Sequoia”), West Texas (“Houston”), and Kentucky (“Kentucky”) were granted statehood while the Canadian provinces were not. The novels follow three different Canadian storylines, from the perspective of an American in Ontario, from a Canadian insurgent in Manitoba, and a citizen of the freshly minted Republic of Quebec.
The lesson, on both the Confederate and Canadian fronts, is that occupation is hell. Not just for the occupied, but for the occupiers. And it’s really, really difficult to reconcile with a remotely liberal democracy.
* – The series is complete. Unfortunately, the last four books were never recorded. So I’m having to read them, and I haven’t quite gotten to them yet.
** – It was rather a stroke of genius on Teddy Roosevelt’s part. The US was ill-equipped for a Francophone state. And negotiating an independent Quebec made an immediate ally in separating Canada. The confederacy probably would have been better equipped for incorporating Quebec, as it (ironically) had more of a multicultural streak and a system that could incorporate such. Not only did they have the primary Spanish-speaking states of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Cuba, but they had a comparatively benign policy towards Native Americans, leaving them to govern Sequoia (Oklahoma). They also would have been better positioned to avoid the conflicts with Utah if they had been so inclined, though the Confederacy evidently had a particular disdain for the Mormons.
*** – The two parties are the Democrats and the Socialists, with Republicans being little more than an afterthought. Teddy Roosevelt, a Democrat, knew that the Canadian provinces would likely vote Socialist. Further, there was more of an impetus to try to solidify their holdings on the former Confederate states to strengthen the hand of those who did not want to return to the Confederacy. Though solidifying the Americanness of the Canadians also may have been wise policy, it was less urgent because they had no nearby country to return to.
Yeah Turtledove basically hits on the barrier that guarantees that Canada would not be invaded by the US: liberalism and politics. An annexed Canada would, of course, demand the vote. The US as a liberal nation would be pretty much obligated to give it one. The then enfranchised Canadians would tip the balance of power in the US leftward. Thus the most belligerent component of the American polity would view acquiring Canada as an anathema.Report
North,
Just give it a few years. Wall Street’s got a plan for that.
Honestly, I think it is downright stupid for folks to think “we can’t do that” or “we won’t do that”.
If Canada has military plans on the books to invade us, and we have plans on the books to invade them, then yes, there is a finite probability that they’ll come up.
We may be into Krakatoa territory — “Oh no, we just lost a summer!” or “We just lost the Eastern Seaboard, and Miami has to go SOMEWHERE” (Won’t the Miamians be pleased with nova scotia?). Or maybe Canada becomes the last bastion of oil, and sides with the Russians…
There’s always another reason to invade someplace. And Canada’s so sparsely populated that you could probably get most of the short-term gains by just grabbing the cities… (no, i’m not serious).Report
I could conceivably see annexing (not invading) the western four, with the GOP believing that three of the four would trend red over time.Report
(Not that I’m suggesting the provinces would go for it. Even in Alberta, support is low.)Report
Audioreading?
Is that like listening?
#neologism grumpReport
Yes, but listening to a reading of a book.Report
Awesome, my kids audioread Dr. Seuss every night!Report
The child development expert said we should probably stop reading so much Seuss.Report
Will,
What reason given?Report
Abstract/stylized vs literal illustration, and real vs mythical characters.Report
And what business of theirs, if your Lain learns to speak
In great rhymes that would make all the rappers go weak?
Huh. We were told rhyming books were good. We don’t read Seuss (or rhyming books) every night though. Did they say why?Report
Lain may wind up friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless; unemployed, in Greenland.Report
Just ignore them. Or try a different set of experts.
I would do is make sure she’s getting some non-fiction in the mix, and I’d make sure that she’s exposed to music (classical or jazz) that flexes the non-verbal communication muscles in the brain.
But 2nd opinions are pretty awesome. The experts are expert at average children, and I don’t expect you have an average child. Outliers abound.Report
Without reading the stories, and going solely on the linked map, Turtledove’s Western Hemisphere Great War alliances make no fishin sense.
A CSA (still with slavery right? or at least formal legal White Supremacy e.g. Jim Crow, Apartheid?) joined up with the triple Entente is counter to a good deal of the the ideology and most of the realpolitik interests of each of the three real world countries that composed it. Likewise with a USA and the Triple Alliance. (but in reverse – that is, the USA would have no need to prop up either the Hapsburgs or the Ottomans, and would have found them distasteful to boot).
Brazil may have been a mortal enemy to to the CSA if the former executed emancipation at the same time as the real world – and the latter embarked on its desired slavery empire in the Caribbean. More likely in my estimation, they would have been BFFs – t=the success of the CSA revolution would have emboldened Brazil to continue slavery for another generation or more, and the two of them decided to divide up central and South america between them.Report
Jim Bennett also has some issues with the CSA-British alliance. But here is how it unfolded (rot13.com, since this is getting into the nitty gritty):
Va beqre gb frpher Oevgnva naq Senapr’f fhccbeg va gur Frpbaq Zrkvpna Jne (orgjrra gur PFN naq gur HFN va gur 1880’f), gur PFN znahzvggrq gur fynirf va gur 1880’f, naq ercynprq vg jvgu na ncnegurvq. Jvgu gur uryc bs gubfr gjb pbhagevrf, gurl orng gur HFN sbe gur frpbaq fgenvtug gvzr. Gur HFN qrgrezvarq gung vg arrqrq nyyvrf, naq gurl’q whfg sbhtug Oevgnva naq Senapr… naq gurer jnf Treznal (jub unq nqivfrq gurz va gur FZJ), naq n eryngvbafuvc jnf phygvingrq.
Obgu nyyvnaprf jrer njxjneq naq fgenvarq. Treznal naq gur HF fgnegrq fdhnooyvat vzzrqvngryl nsgre jvaavat gur jne. Fynirel be ab, gur Pnanqvnaf naq Oevgf jrer rzoneenffrq ol gurve eryngvbafuvc gb gur PFN.
Oenmvy jnf arhgeny guebhtubhg zbfg bs gur jne. Vg jnf nffhzrq gung gurve flzcnguvrf jrer jvgu gur PFN, ohg jbhyqa’g pbzzvg. Jura gur gvqr bs gur jne fuvsgrq gb gur nccnerag (naq riraghny) ivpgbef. V pna’g erpnyy vs gurl fgvyy unq fynirel be abg.Report
That all makes a reasonable amount of sense (and Bennett’s details further bring it into focus). And thinking about it more, of course alliances can switch surprising quickly and create odd couples / trios – the premier example being an alliance between a liberal social democracy (with some issues), an aging mercantile (though also substantially democratic) empire, and a totalitarian communist dictatorship.
Though I still think (like Bennett sort of does) that the details and dynamics of how things went down in 1880s the Southenvictoryverse are where things are stretched out the most. From what I have read of Turtledove, he’s kinda weak on the logistic imperatives to strategy, but so is just about everyone else (particularly when it comes to post-bellum alt US Civil war scenarios – because the logistic advantages of the North is the biggest thing you have to either negate or just ignore)Report
…because the logistic advantages of the North is the biggest thing you have to either negate or just ignore)
This. As the military folks like to say, amateurs study tactics but professionals study logistics. The Maryland Campaign was a big supply raid, with a secondary hope that it might strengthen the position of anti-war politicians. No way Lee had the logistical capability to do any actual occupations.
I haven’t read the series myself (it’s on my list), but the things I’ve read suggest that there are lots of critical logistics and resource issues that Turtledove ignores. For example, the East Texas oil fields were a critical resource in WWII. I might not go so far as the historians who claim that in our timeline the Allies wouldn’t have won without East Texas, but there is a case to be made that that’s true. In any alternate WWII with a CSA and the US, the Texas campaigns are going to be of monumental importance. While East Texas proper wasn’t discovered until 1930, there were enough fields in production by 1920 that a CSA crushed in the WWI time frame almost certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to hold on to Texas.Report
Even with massive logistic advantages, it took the North 4 full years to fully defeat the South, and the biggest issue for the Southern armies wasn’t running out of supplies (they’d been doing that since ’63), but running out of bodies. Every engagement in Virginia in 1864 and 1865 further reduced the Army of Northern Virginia’s ability to fight because it reduced the size of that army.
And the South’s large disadvantage in the number of bodies persists to this day, and only began to diminish in the second half of the 20th century. At no point, even with a British alliance, would the South have been able to defeat the North in a prolonged war, because the North could simply keep sending down new fighters, while the South would run out of them.
See also: Germany in 1918.Report
At no point, even with a British alliance, would the South have been able to defeat the North in a prolonged war, because the North could simply keep sending down new fighters, while the South would run out of them.
Yeah, I’ve always thought that if you were going to do an alternate history with the South winning, it wouldn’t turn on some brilliant Southern military stratagem. Maybe Lincoln dies sooner. Or the South makes the Union troops’ advances slower and more painful. In any case, the North decides (politically) that the price being paid is too high and gives up.Report
Are the Patriots managing these maps? 😉Report
All the maps that Yglesias gave are fascinating. Some are more well-known than others. I think a better map that didn’t happen for Israel/Palestine, because it is less well known, was the Faisal-Weizmann agreement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal–Weizmann_Agreement
This would have gave the Jews a state on both sides of the River Jordan and the rest of the Middle East to the Hashemites to create an Arab nation-state out of. The French would have probably insisted on an independent Lebanon for the Arab Christians. This would have cut off many, but not all, Middle East conflicts in the bud.
2. The African map is also fascinating but a bit off if we accept 1844, the year of departure as its starting date. Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Madagascar more or less already existed in their modern boundaries. South Africa and Ethiopia were also on their way to their modern forms. If the Europeans never colonized Africa, beyond the parts that they already controlled in 1844, mainly South Africa and Algeria, than I’d imagine that coastal polities would dominate the entire polities because of greater links to the outside world giving them a technological edge. This is how Japan ended up dominating Korea and China. I see no reason why African polities would be different. Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Ethiopia, and Madagascar would be the main powers because they were the early adopters of the nation-state and Western technology and education. They also had a religious advantage by being Christian or Muslim and more sympathetic to outsiders for that reason.Report
Since the Hashemites got their asses kicked out of the Hejaz, and thus lost the prestige of being the defenders of Mecca and Medina, just a few years later, I’m not sure it would have mattered.Report