Oh, it’s entirely intended to be a massive clusterfuck. This is a generational if not epochal trauma for the CSA, for lack of a better way to put it.
Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Also, for the numbers, remember the Confederacy is losing all of the population of Texas, as well as any Citizens who want to stay on their land as it gets taken by the USA (and yes, I know that might turn out to be just the VA part of our Delmarva.)
Exactly. Mix of WW2 Russia and post-Trianon Hungary in terms of getting just fucking walloped
Ehh, just wondering if it isn't too massive a clusterfuck, the sort that just spirals and results in neighbors "restoring order" on a permanent basis.
I continue to be surprised that the US doesn't simply annex the Mississippi River Valley.
They haven't burnt it to the ground, it's both productive land and strategically vital in this era, the demographics are moderately favorable to annexation...
But I guess the thinking is "a puppet with captive extractive industries to feed American industry at favorable prices is a great outcome for our people," and we only really proved that "no, a peer or integral member state with its own booming economy is a great outcome for our people" after WWII IOTL.
So I guess the US, even with the rest of NA welded into a trade bloc, is going to be at least 20-30% poorer on a per capita basis than IOTL, just because of how much poorer the rest of that bloc is in part due to its own exactions on them.
I can definitely see something like "the CSA has to send X% of its annual cotton/beef/tobacco/coal/iron/etc output to the USA for 25-50 years, and also the CSA can't enact any tariffs for American-made goods for 25-50 years either" being in the final treaty, along with whatever military restrictions, territorial changes, and indemnities on top of it.
This is the prevailing thinking in Philadelphia, for sure.
And, yeah, I’d peg US GDP per capita a bit lower than OTL, though a way wealthier Mexico as a primary trade partner and a Canada that’s only a bit poorer (OTL 2010 levels in 2020, for shorthand) makes up for a bit of that, as does not quite seeing manufacturing get gutted in the same way by China and lower military expenditures sans WW2/Cold War. So youd probably have a higher HDI and lower GINI number, even with a GDP per capita in the mid to low 60,000s by 2022-23ish rather than the high 70ks
In terms of instances of demographic catastrophe, I also think of Paraguay after the war of the Triple Alliance as the extreme example.
Then given how hard ITTL the male population is hit in the GAW, I'm especially curious to see how this will affect women's role in postwar society and politics. I would assume that compared to the US, there might be an even larger impetus for women's rights.
Then given how hard ITTL the male population is hit in the GAW, I'm especially curious to see how this will affect women's role in postwar society and politics. I would assume that compared to the US, there might be an even larger impetus for women's rights.
True. I was thinking of Quebec and the CSA (which is hinted to be even poorer than Quebec in some of the EU stuff) and not really remembering that Mexico isn't a basket-case here. A Mexico as wealthy relative to the USA as Canada would be a powerhouse for bilateral trade and increased cross-border manufacturing specialization of the sort which exists around the Great Lakes IOTL.
Hmm.
So my thinking on this is likely to be somewhat poorly received by the prevailing political currents on this site, but here goes:
1. HDI is, to a very close approximation, a metric which determines how close a country is to a Nordic Social Democratic ideal. It's not a terrible measure of human flourishing but I don't really think it's the be-all and end-all either.
2. That said, GDP is an accounting measure; US GDP is higher than Western European in part because we more directly account for expenses in the healthcare and higher education sectors, each of which is laden with more rent-seeking than in Western Europe.
3. But that still only accounts for, at most, a third or so of the gap in GDP per capita between the US and Germany or the Netherlands, let alone between the US and France or the UK.
4. The size of our internal market, depth and liquidity of our capital markets, breadth of domestic energy resources, friendliness to immigration, and the fact that our regulatory regime is more favorable to business formation, bankruptcy, investment, R&D, and commercialization of technology explains the remainder (which is the genuine gap in standard of living as opposed to accounting differences). Europe's labor, capital, and technology markets are grossly over-regulated, in stupid ways to boot.
5. The several sectors which Europe does *not* overregulate the hell out of, most importantly the construction of public infrastructure and for-profit private housing development, routinely outperform the US, where they're a massive drag on growth.
All this is to say that while TTL's America is likely to be a bit less unequal, I doubt the median standard of living is going to be better. Not with a smaller market, several poorer neighbors, and an economic model which is described as both more regulated and more corrupt than IOTL.
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Oh, there's going to be a huge one. If nothing else, giving (white) women the right to vote is going to help buttress the political power and population of the white voting population. I'd also expect the economic role of women to improve as well: yes, when the war is over there are going to be a lot of veterans coming back and they wil need work, the fact of the matter is that the high casualty rates are going to make it difficult for there to be enough men to actually fill the jobs that will exist. And so its going to be not only difficult, but almost impossible, to role women back to where they were before the war. This is surely cause a lot of resentment on the parts of some, but I see ol Huey championing them and having white women becoming an important part of his electoral coalition.
We might be in a weird situation where, post-war, the CSA is actually at the forefront of women's rights in the Western World: but for less liberal reasons than we'd suspect.
Not unlike he did with Hattie Caraway's campaign for Senate IOTL I guess.
If you want some sort of comparison, take a look at the fact that Utah Territory was at the forefront of Women's Rights. Yes, they had Polygamy, but the gender ratio among the Mormons was closer to equal than it was among the miners and other non-LDS in the Territory.
Just tell the Confederates that the US Army in Georgia is just making it easier for the entire Confederacy to standardize on one Rail Gauge. 
And note, the mention of 100,000 civilians who starve in Georgia over the Winter of 1916-1917 indicates that there aren't many areas of the Confederacy that have extra food that they can reach.
In addition to Paraguay, Serbia , Russia and Germany as examples, I'm starting to consider various wars within China as a model.
And note, the mention of 100,000 civilians who starve in Georgia over the Winter of 1916-1917 indicates that there aren't many areas of the Confederacy that have extra food that they can reach.
In addition to Paraguay, Serbia , Russia and Germany as examples, I'm starting to consider various wars within China as a model.
It does make you wonder where Fast food chains in 1990 USA get the toys in their kid's meals from....
The Liberals are on track to win 1916 big, but not that big. I'm pretty the Solid West either holds or, if it is broken, does not remain broken for very long (more the former Confederacy in OTL 1928, basically).
I mean, given the previous dominance of chauvinism and the South's OTL reticence at female suffrage, I initially thought the CSA would be a frontrunner for "last place in the Anglosphere to grant women the vote," granting it in like 1940 or 1950 (like most of LATAM IOTL), but pointing this out actually makes me think it could be much sooner than that, like 1930 (I honestly could see Long narrowly lose in 1927, then women are granted the vote by 1933, and he wins that year in a victory that is attributed, at least in part, to the effect of women voters).
Also, would be interesting to see Hattie Caraway operate in a smaller pond where she's a bigger fish, as being a political ally of President Long could be very helpful for her long-term political prospects (maybe she doesn't get primaried in 1943, or whenever her reelection is? Assuming the CSA even has primaries at all, anyways, maybe she just needs him to survive a convention or however it is the CSA operated in terms of candidate selection).
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I've toyed a bit with the idea of a book for the TL called "Republic of Widows" focusing on the gender disparity in postwar CSA, so these are certainly things I'm trying to keep in mind
Mexico will have a GDP per capita similar to OTL Spain by present day, which extrapolated onto a realistic alt-Mexican population makes it a top seven economy, top ten at least, and way bigger than OTL Canada's even if the per capita GDP is lower - so, yes, a huge piece of the puzzle. Tijuana being next to California with that kind of trade/manufacturing relationship would be a huge deal, to your point, and you'd probably see a corridor of interwoven economies from Mesilla/Las Cruces all the way through Los Pasos, with El Paso TX in the middle
Yeah, there's definitely going to be some playing with numbers to make US GDP per capita come out to a final number, though a lack of WW1/WW2 level conflicts and no Great Depression gets us close to there.
This is certainly a thought
A New Tsar in a New Century: The Life and Reign of Michael II of Russia
"...steeped in traditions that to outsiders seemed remarkably opaque and difficult to understand, in some ways similar to the disputes that had driven the Old Believers out of the Russian Church and, in some cases, out of Russia entirely. As it was, Orthodoxy to Western observers seemed almost mystical in its rites (partially just out of familiarity with Catholicism's own hierarchy of mysteries and practices) but within Russia, especially in rural areas, Orthodoxy came with a dash of unique occultism that transcended Christendom and in some cases hearkened back to Slavic paganism itself.
It was in this way that practices that would have been dismissed as outright heretical by Rome found favor not just in the mir but also in major Russian cities. Priests who claimed to be healers and could divine fortunes from the stars were tacitly accepted not just in various parishes but found to be not charlatans or amusing entertainers but rather people who were taken seriously. Otherwise-secular upper-class bourgeoisie who found the rites of Orthodoxy gauche were drawn to cosmology, and books on theosophy were just as popular in the parlors of St. Petersburg as they were increasingly in New York and Philadelphia across the ocean where the movement really found its wings.
The permeation of occultism in Russian culture in the late 1910s was part of a general tradition within the country that nonetheless became more sophisticated and, for the first time, studied by the elite, and emerged as a key point of dispute within Russian conservative circles of whether it was a tradition of culture or a decadent wedge within it..."
- A New Tsar in a New Century: The Life and Reign of Michael II of Russia
(Hat tip to @Couperin for the idea of writing on Rasputin-adjacent occultism and its popularity in Tsarist Russia)
It was in this way that practices that would have been dismissed as outright heretical by Rome found favor not just in the mir but also in major Russian cities. Priests who claimed to be healers and could divine fortunes from the stars were tacitly accepted not just in various parishes but found to be not charlatans or amusing entertainers but rather people who were taken seriously. Otherwise-secular upper-class bourgeoisie who found the rites of Orthodoxy gauche were drawn to cosmology, and books on theosophy were just as popular in the parlors of St. Petersburg as they were increasingly in New York and Philadelphia across the ocean where the movement really found its wings.
The permeation of occultism in Russian culture in the late 1910s was part of a general tradition within the country that nonetheless became more sophisticated and, for the first time, studied by the elite, and emerged as a key point of dispute within Russian conservative circles of whether it was a tradition of culture or a decadent wedge within it..."
- A New Tsar in a New Century: The Life and Reign of Michael II of Russia
(Hat tip to @Couperin for the idea of writing on Rasputin-adjacent occultism and its popularity in Tsarist Russia)
The Opium Lords: A History of China's Drug Cartels
"...whatever it may have said on paper, the governor in Yunnan did not in fact run the province, and despite the number of French "advisors" (usually Hoa Vietnamese, people of Chinese descent from Hanoi or the hinterlands) quadrupling between 1915 and 1918 to help continue to steer matters in their unofficial semi-colony in far-flung southwestern China, the operations of the Tang cousins were nearly impossible to interdict. Indeed, many of the French officials began either turning a blind eye out of fear for their safety or even participating in the opium operation in Yunnan, and by late 1916 Haiphong had emerged not just as Vietnam's chief port for the import of finished industrial goods but as one of the epicenters of the export of opium around the world, supported by French customs officials on the take and a small and concentrated community of Hoa people loyal to the Tangs.
The strategic placement of Yunnan and its relative isolation had already helped the Tangs cultivate their position, and their loyalty to the Guomindang, while not absolute, was assumed in Canton, especially by Sun Yat-sen, who while vaguely aware of their opium-running activities thought it a necessary evil to finance the export of Tridenist, Asianist revolutionary ideas. Yunnan was far enough away from Nanking, and too dependent on local bosses in villages and farm districts, that President Li's armies were unlikely to ever bother the Tangs, and tax collection was dodgy at best in the Second Republic as it was.
Rather, the proceeds of the Tang's booming business went not just into the GMD's pockets to finance its activities both in China and abroad, but increasingly into the hands of revolutionary cells across northern Vietnam, central Burma, and the northeastern provinces of the Raj. These territories had in common the fact htat they were hilly, forested and remote from major centers of power; the only rail connection into Yunnan ran from Hanoi, and the border between China, French Indochina, and British Burma and India existed only as a line on a map. Yunnan's isolated valleys proved perfect places for gun-runners to connect with Ghadarite rebels in India or transfer opium crops to Vietnamese gangsters; the association of opium with revolutionary activity rapidly began to solidify both in Asia and abroad, where sympathy for the Guomindang decreased considerably in both London and Paris due to the broadly-held view that the Canton-based political movement was directly financing Pan-Asian rebellions.
Support for the Li administration from Europe thus grew considerably, in the form of money and arms, much of which wound up in Guomindang hands anyways. It further served to suggest to Sun and others that the emerging ties between organized crime and their party operations were necessary to counteract European "imperialism" and associated Li as a Western catspaw, further deteriorating relationships between the opposition and the government while papering over the brutality with which the Tangs enforced their rule in Yunnan..."
- The Opium Lords: A History of China's Drug Cartels
The strategic placement of Yunnan and its relative isolation had already helped the Tangs cultivate their position, and their loyalty to the Guomindang, while not absolute, was assumed in Canton, especially by Sun Yat-sen, who while vaguely aware of their opium-running activities thought it a necessary evil to finance the export of Tridenist, Asianist revolutionary ideas. Yunnan was far enough away from Nanking, and too dependent on local bosses in villages and farm districts, that President Li's armies were unlikely to ever bother the Tangs, and tax collection was dodgy at best in the Second Republic as it was.
Rather, the proceeds of the Tang's booming business went not just into the GMD's pockets to finance its activities both in China and abroad, but increasingly into the hands of revolutionary cells across northern Vietnam, central Burma, and the northeastern provinces of the Raj. These territories had in common the fact htat they were hilly, forested and remote from major centers of power; the only rail connection into Yunnan ran from Hanoi, and the border between China, French Indochina, and British Burma and India existed only as a line on a map. Yunnan's isolated valleys proved perfect places for gun-runners to connect with Ghadarite rebels in India or transfer opium crops to Vietnamese gangsters; the association of opium with revolutionary activity rapidly began to solidify both in Asia and abroad, where sympathy for the Guomindang decreased considerably in both London and Paris due to the broadly-held view that the Canton-based political movement was directly financing Pan-Asian rebellions.
Support for the Li administration from Europe thus grew considerably, in the form of money and arms, much of which wound up in Guomindang hands anyways. It further served to suggest to Sun and others that the emerging ties between organized crime and their party operations were necessary to counteract European "imperialism" and associated Li as a Western catspaw, further deteriorating relationships between the opposition and the government while papering over the brutality with which the Tangs enforced their rule in Yunnan..."
- The Opium Lords: A History of China's Drug Cartels
Oh, lovely. Though I’m not convinced the KMT’s stance is very plausible; in the absence of the huge disruptions, rampant poverty, wars, and finally the Communist push to end drug consumption, China itself still has a sizable percentage of the populace addicted to opium, perhaps as high as a quarter partaking regularly.
The tacit toleration, sure; the ideological justification would be very hard to sustain, though.
The tacit toleration, sure; the ideological justification would be very hard to sustain, though.
Oh god, there's going to a massive opium epidemic in the US and Confederacy in the 20s, ain't there?
The Tang unloading it on the West Coast and finding a willing market in the shape of traumatised and wounded vets, young people wanting to rebel against the older generations, artiste, etc.
We know Prohibition ain't national (at least in the US. I could see the CS pulling that that switch) but the majority of states are probably dry.
This is going to lead to some FUN rivalries between West Coast Chinese gangs and East Coast Italian/Jewish and Irish mobs.
The Tang unloading it on the West Coast and finding a willing market in the shape of traumatised and wounded vets, young people wanting to rebel against the older generations, artiste, etc.
We know Prohibition ain't national (at least in the US. I could see the CS pulling that that switch) but the majority of states are probably dry.
This is going to lead to some FUN rivalries between West Coast Chinese gangs and East Coast Italian/Jewish and Irish mobs.
......Drug addicted US president incoming.
lol!
That would be terrible. Terrible.
Sad!