If the north lost Civil War would we be in power now?n/t

[dave502d]

[whistle]

1. Who is we?

[dave502d]

2. The DEM.n/t

[SteppingRazor]

3. You mean if there was still a Confederacy?

If that's what you mean, then yes -- there can be no doubt progressives, or at the very least Democrats, would be running the show, gven the electoral college breakdown.

But the races are so close these days, you could narrow it down further and stil keep us in power by asking, "What if we had just let the Lone Star Republic remain an independent country?" Ah, no Texas. Even that would give us the electoral advantage.

But for al its unfortunate tendencies in elections, I'll stick with keeping the South. It's got a lot of good points as well. And it is, after all, just as American as the North.

[dave502d]

6. I don't hate the south.

I think they are just part of a good con job.They will wake up
one of these days.

[SteppingRazor]

11. Here's one that'll blow your mind --

If the South was still the Confederacy, we'd probably all be Republicans, since they would probably be the liberals. Scary, eh? ;)

[stepnw1f]

4. The Nazis Would Have Won WWII

In fact I would go as far as saying the US or Federation Republic would have aided Hitler. Hell... The North won and yet Bush's grand pappy still helped Hitler. Just imagine...

[HawkerHurricane]

7. I don't think so.

With the Union divided, and possible hostile, we wouldn't have gotten involved in WW1... without our involvement, the Germans win (or force a favorable peace), the Kaiser is never overthrown, and Hitler and his Nazi thugs become heroic veterans, not a political movement. There would certainly still be a WW2... But it would be the Kaiser running Germany (speculation on the governments of France, England and Russia available on request)

[stepnw1f]

10. Thanks for That

Very interesting.

[blindpig]

29. further speculation

This topic has long been an object of bootless speculation in my woolgathering. As you say, without the US Germany wins, probably in spring 1918. In that case Germany would be in a position to enforce the punitive treaty imposed upon Lenin. Much of Ukraine would be in German hands, the Soviet Union would be crippled and with the Germans becoming the backers of the counterrevolutionaries in the West while the Japanese and their reactionary friends are in the East. The Soviet Union would end up truncated if it didn't dissolve entirely.

Meanwhile Germany would experience a period of triumphalism before reverting to business as usual. This would spur a resurgence of the German socialists parties, resulting, after a period of struggle who knows how long, in the first modern socialist state, much more democratic than the Russian model due to the much higher level of education of the German masses.

Like I said, bootless speculation.

[HawkerHurricane]

33. Funny, I see the opposite...

(Of course, this is opinion, or as you called it 'bootless speculation')...
With the victory, the psuedo-fuedalism of the German 2nd Reich (NOT called that) would be confirmed, the class system even firmer... any socialism would be along Clausewitz's MilSoc (Military Socialism) lines, where military units would run entire sectors of the economy, under thier officers (all from the noble families, naturally). With a victory, the Pre-WW1 system would be confirmed as successful; there would be niether a push for change to socialism/communism NOR the reactionary movement to facism/Nazism.

You want to see socialism? France would go that route, with the 3rd Republic discredited by defeat, they would be the ones looking for a new system.

England, safely behind thier moat, would suffer only minor changes... but would gear thier foriegn policy (as they always had) against the strongest power in Europe.

Russia would look for revenge, and fall into a dictatorship of some sort... whether Stalinistic (under Stalin?) or a military dictatorship under one of the generals, or even a restored Czar... WW2 would occur almost on schedule, with a Russian/French/British alliance against Germany... but Germany would be in better shape (no Versaille treaty ) and worse shape (no need to rebuild from scratch, and so no modernization). They also wouldn't start it.

[HawkerHurricane]

5. Not under that name.

The Republicans would fragment back into thier component parts (Whigs, Free Soilers, Abolitionist which would change thier name). The Democrats were the party of Southerners, and would disintigrate.

Harry Turtledove's AltHist books say that the parties would be Whigs (Republicans in all but name), Socialists (exactly what it sounds like) and Republicans (populist farmers party), with the Whigs dominating more often than not.

[Solon]

19. Actually if I remember right...

For the Union: half of the Republicans bolted the party, under Lincoln's leadership, to an earlier existing Socialist party, permanently crippling the Republican party in favor of the Socialists. Along with them were the Democrats, basically a party for business and conservative interests.

The Confederacy is a little more interesting, Whigs dominated for many years after the Civil War(aka Second War of Independence). Along with them were the Radical Liberals(not all that radical or liberal), and much later on, the Freedom(Fascist) party, they formed after WW1 along relatively same lines as the Nazi party of our time line evolved in Germany. BTW: Yes the Kaiser one, with United States' help, in WW1.

Speaking of Turtledove, have you read "Days of Infamy" yet? Its a pretty good book, about what would have happened if the Japanese invaded the Hawaiian Islands instead of just an air raid.

[HawkerHurricane]

25. Read the blurb, won't buy the book.

The problem with the concept of the Japanese invading the Hawaiian Islands is one of shipping...
Hawaii is barely capable of feeding itself in 1942 (too much land dedicated to suger and pinnapple for export)... the Japanese lacked the shipping capability to move enough troops there and then support them (and the island population, though I imagine they'd let the locals starve).
Capture them? Doubtful. Hold them for any period of time? Not hardly. Losing the Islands would have made Japan a higher priority; and even after Pearl Harbor the U.S. outgunned Japan in every category of ship except light carriers... and we could build more faster than they could.
It's too unlikely. Sorry, he's a great writer, but...

[Alcibiades]

8. The real question

... is would we have a Labour Government here if we had lost the Revolutionary war to the Tories and the Brits.

I think so, and we would have still won WWI and WWII, and the Civil War would have been a small insurrection that the british would have put down quickly and brutally.

[iwantmycountryback]

9. What would have happened was

The Union and the Confederacy would have been 2 different nations. The Confederacy would have lasted about a decade before they would have had to come crawling back to the North because of their complete lack of industry and manufacturing.

[Walt Starr]

12. For an eye opening look at what would have happened if the South had won

I suggest reading How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove and the ensuing series of books.

This book is based upon the premise that a Confederate officer acting as a courier still drops Special Order 191 (Lee's complete listing of the Army of Northern Virginia's disposition in the first invasion of Pennsylvania with the complete order of battle) wrapped around three cigars, but a confederate enlisted man picks it up and hands it back to the courier.

In history, the plans fell into the hands of General McClellan who was able to see the strategic avantages of moving his forces into place for te Battle of Antietem. That victory lead diretly to the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation which kept Britain and France from recognizing the CSA as an independent nation.

That one document falling into Union hands is probably responsible for the North winning the war.

Turtledove takes the failure of that intelligence falling into Union hands in this alternate history to the logical conclusion that Lee would have had striking victories in Pennsylvania and Maryland, encircling D.C., and allowing Britain and France the opportunity to recognize the CSA. The greatest consequences is the fact that Lincoln would have no chance to emancipate the slaves in the states in rebellion.

The book above is about "The Second Mexican War" which is a war between the USA and the CSA in 1881.

In Turtledove's alternate history, the Republican Party ends up pretty much dying off, the Democrats remain the right wing group they were in the time period, and the Socialist PArty begins rising to prominence.

A great read. I'm on the third book in the series about the Great War (World War I) and the battles between the CSA and USA during that war on this continent!

[expatriot]

24. Is that the book where tanks are referred to as "barrels"

I just read the jacket of it a few years back... looked very interesting.... I am assuming that they are called "barrels" since the trench warfare of WWI was fought on this continent and the South's British allies introduced the armored vehicle ot the South where it got the nickname "barrel" instead of "tank" because of the greater familiar to the agrarian South with a "barrel" than a "tank" (which is how the tank got it's name because the Brits thought it looked like a metal tank)

[Walt Starr]

28. SPOILER ALERT: Yep, tanks are called barrels

but not quite because of what you describe.

In our timeline, the Germans called them "Fässer" or "Barrels". The British called them "Tanks". The British word stuck because they and their allies won.

OOPS, I might have given something away...

[Kraklen]

13. Harry Turtledove is writing a good series of novels on that.

It's as perfectly a good scenario as I could think of.

The North never intercept plans for Gettysburg, which the South wins. They eventually win succession.

There is a second civil war in the 1880's. It's fought to essentially a standstill. South frees the slaves but it's essentially apartheid.

U.S.A and C.S.A. fight during WWI. Confederacy is allied with Britain and France, U.S. allies with Germany. A black socialist revolution rises and fails. There's little change on the border, but the South concedes defeat, leads to hyperinflation, carpetbagging, fascist uprising.

In the late forties the CSA launches a surprise "blitzkrieg" attack against the socialist U.S. Blacks are rounded up and executed.

This is where the series is at now. It's detailing, via metaphor, how the Nazis went from shooting Jews to gassing them.

There's something about Nazis in film that makes them look distinguished. I guess it's the fancy uniforms and the aristocratic british accents. Really they were just German rednecks. I bet they'd look different if they said things like, "hey cleetus, I bet we could kill us some niggers faster iffin we hook this here tailpipe and gassed 'em like a possum inna tree stump."

[Walt Starr]

16. Close, but not quite there

It was Special Order 191 which lead directly to Antietem and the Emancipation Proclamation which kept Britain and France from recognizing the CSA.

See my post above yours. I'm on the fourth book in the series right now, and am retiring to read some more of it.

[Yupster]

18. I lost it at World War I

I thought it was good until then, but I just don't see any way that the USA and CSA would take opposite sides of a foreign war.

Then it becomes a weird social experiment of Turtledove's and I lost interest.

I like the World War II lizard series more. Atvar the Fleetlord is a much more probable figure than Lincoln the socialist.

[Walt Starr]

27. Lincoln the Socialist is absolutely spot on!

Most of the speeches Lincoln gives in How Few Remain are taken directly from speeches he gave on the campaign trail prior to his run for president.

And the involvement in the foreign war thing was a pretty good analysis too, in my opinion. The murder of a Hapsburg prince lead to alliances being called in and war being declared all over Europe. Because the assumption Turtledove makes is that Britain and France recognize and ally with the CSA, it's logical to assume the USA would ally with Germany. This would have lead directly to the involvement of the USA and CSA on opposite sides in that conflict.

The only way the CSA stood a chance was if Britain and France recognized them as an actual nation and had stuck their noses into it. As soon as the U.K. got involved, the USA was surrounded by enemies as Canada was just an extension of the U.K.

Under those circumstances, the USA would ahve to go looking for a European ally who could, if necessary, keep the UK busy on the European continent.

[pinto]

14. With all due respect, it's a hypothetical question that has no answer.

[HawkerHurricane]

15. Can you imagine a world...

WITHOUT hypothetical questions?

[Swamp Rat]

17. We'd be speaking German in the South.

With pockets of Cajun French resistence. :)

Vive la Louisiane! :D

[ISUGRADIA]

20. there would be a totally different history with different players

the flow of history interupted would have seen a ripple effect. For example, your great grandparents didn't have sex the night your grand father was conceived. Instead they did a week later and a girl was born. She grew up and married a man from a different family. You never happened. Multiply that by millions and you can see the geneological effects would be amazing.

[VOX]

22. Interesting. My great-great-great grandfather fought at Gettysburg...

He was in Company D of the 11th Mississippi Infantry, which took part in the ill-fated Pickett-Pettigrew advance on July 3, 1863. Company D took in fifty-five men and all but ten were killed or wounded and captured.

My ancestral link to him was one of his children born **after** the Civil War. So, if my GGG was killed at Gettysburg, I wouldn't be typing this.

He was captured at Petersburg in 1865, and imprisoned at City Point, virginia, where he came down with smallpox. Somehow, he survived. Again, if he succumbed to that disease, I wouldn't be typing this.

Weird. :scared:

[Lannes]

21. Are we in power now?

Look at who is running things and where they are from.

[QC]

23. If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. n/t

[expatriot]

26. I think that if the South had won the Civil War, there would soon

have been a war for national reunification in the 1870's or 1880's which would have been rekindled after a renewed struggle for the west.... and which an even greater industrial north would have won.

Despite the South's dream of being rescued by the Brits or France, historically this would not have been a longtime alliance at ALL if one at ALL. First of all, the much cited economic relationship between England and the South is over-rated... Britain quickly replaced all cotton imports lost from the South with imports from India. Secondly, the populous of Britain and France were decidedly against the slavery situation in the South which the governments were aware of and hence their weariness... support for the Confederacy in England was limited mainly to a handful of wealthy financiers and speculators. Popular opposition to the South in Britain was so great that dockworkers went on strike rather than load/unload cargo from or for the South.

I also think that the South was never very close to winning the war as mythology would have us believe. Lee was so outmanned and outgunned at Antietam that the fact his army wasn't annhilated was a stroke of luck for Lee and testament to the stupidity of northern generals, the disordered nature of many of the union green regiments and the hardiness of the southern ranks and tenacity of its officer corps.

Same story with Gettysburg. By this time the Union was putting fully manned Corps after fully-manned and well-gunned Corps onto the field much faster than the ever-weakening but still tenacious Southern Army could route them. Even if the South _had_ won Gettysburg, it would not have been the last battle. Lee would have had to turn south and take Baltimore and then DC itself to win. He could not have gone further north or he would have left Northern Virginia unprotected.

Okay, that's enough from me.

[MidnightWind]

30. Who cares? Can we fight the battles in front of us right here, right now

and not dig up something that happened almost 150 years ago?

[Paladin]

31. HEY, MODERATORS!!!

I'm going to renew my plea once again that a DU Group for Civil War buffs be set up, ASAP. These Civil War threads take up space in GD that ought to be devoted to numerous current problems that deserve discussion. Moreover, most of the Civil War threads have a bad habit of sinking into ugly, pointless North-South shouting matches, just the kind of material that the Freeper lurkers love to see and encourage. How about it?

[expatriot]

34. There is an American History Group, I think nt

[More Than A Feeling]

32. self delete

already been said.