Guest Post: Tokyo Raid Dominates the Skyline

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Allen W. McDonnell, Robbie A. Taylor, Eric Oppen, and Thomas Wm. Hamilton.


April 18, 1942 -

Admiral Yamamoto feared that the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor would "awaken a sleeping giant". But due to a twist of fate, the consequences would prove to be far worse as the Soviet Union, British Empire, and Free China combined forces with the United States, assisting the Americans in seeking to wreak their revenge.

Japan had established the puppet state of Mengjiang, which bordered the Soviets, while the two countries were not at war. Stalin had major problems in the west from the German invasion and was heavily dependent on supplies coming in to the Far East via Vladivostok. Consequently, it was only a wild card factor that gained Soviet support for Lt-Col James Doolittle's Tokyo Raid. A significant ship from the Soviet Pacific fleet had been on a port call to Pearl Harbor, where it was destroyed in the Japanese attack. This was a terrible mistake since the Japanese had been soundly defeated by the Soviets in a Border War, prior to a 1939 ceasefire. Unafraid of Japanese reprisals, Stalin secretly gave his approval for the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet to deliver a substantial force of B-25B Mitchell medium bombers to Vladivostok.

Without this logistical assistance, Doolittle would have had to have led a smaller force launching at sea from the Hornet itself. Instead, the Raid by a much larger force created a reciprocal amount of significant damage at the very top end of President Roosevelt's expectations. The impact on the Japanese high command was hugely disproportional. The fact that the bombers arrived unexpectedly and unopposed was another brick kicked from the foundations of their outpost perimeter defense.

Moreover, there were wider consequences that Chiang Kai-shek partly foresaw - after all, he was most familiar having fought the Japanese Empire the longest. He correctly anticipated a realignment of naval forces with most analysts suggesting the northern Pacific and even into the Bering Sea to cut off supply routes to Russia. But, to protect the Home Islands, instead the Japanese set about punishing the United States with further revenge attacks on America's west coast.

Americans were deeply worried about the "still very badly undermanned west coast" and Chief of Staff George Marshall discussed a "possible attack by the Japanese upon our plants in San Diego and then a flight by those Japs down into Mexico after they have made their attack." Marshall's visit would foreshadow the San Diego Raid, a second Pearl Harbor-style attack which would bring the Second World War to American shores. The costs to Japan were far greater than the momentary political benefits being that America was fully on a war footing and with radar tracking in San Diego spotting the raid.

Author's Note:

In reality, the Bombers were launched from the USS Hornet, and Johnson speculated from China where the crews landed. Eight US aviators were captured by Japanese forces, and three of these were later executed. All but one of the B-25s were destroyed in crashes, while the 16th landed at Vladivostok.

The consequences of the Doolittle Raid were most severely felt in China, where Japanese reprisals caused the deaths of 250,000 civilians and 70,000 soldiers. Nevertheless, Chiang Kai-shek awarded the raiders China's highest military decorations, and predicted (in his diary) that Japan would alter its goals and strategy as a result of the disgrace. Indeed, the raid was a shock to the staff at Japanese Imperial General Headquarters. As a direct consequence, Japan attacked territories in China to prevent similar shuttle bombing runs.

Provine's Addendum:

Japanese forces did indeed realign their attacks, which had been primarily southward in the first five months of the war in the Pacific as they seized the Philippines in December, 1941, and the Dutch East Indies in January, 1942. Following the declaration of war on the USSR in late April, Japan shifted its attention northward, determining to follow a defensive strategy in the south. An altercation in the Coral Sea in May, 1942, was an Allied victory, although only minor Japanese ships were sunk since larger carriers had been shifted northward. The Japanese forces dug in at Port Moresby and New Britain proved to the Allies that every inch of ground would need to be won with blood. Japan, meanwhile, laid siege to Vladivostok and achieved an overwhelming victory at Midway Atoll thanks to additional ships. Yamamoto, who had been too busy in the north to review defenses in the south, reevaluated their submarine doctrine to align with German Wolfpack U-boat tactics that devastated American supply lines to Russia.

The Pacific Theater continued as a grueling grind of bloody invasions and never-ending cat-and-mouse naval sorties. Even after the lackluster results of the Battle of San Diego, Japanese bombers struck Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver attempting to continue psychological warfare. Experimental Japanese high-level balloons attempted to firebomb forests and poison herds with anthrax, but the damage was minimal in scope and the US government kept the public from panic with coverups. World attention was mostly focused on Africa where the Allies made some gains and Eastern Europe, where Stalin's forces fought on desperately with fewer and fewer supplies. Long-term industrial investments proved necessary, spurring the UK and US to send engineers to Siberia in hopes of opening new mining and manufacturing.

By 1945, the Allies had taken Europe, but Japan still held much of the Far East. The US's new weapon, an atomic bomb, proved to be an opportunity to end the war early. Long-range flights reminiscent of the Doolittle Raid dropped bombs in a first wave in August at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo on the 15th. Japan refused to yield despite the devastation, leading to a "return to the countryside" strategy to protect its populace by spreading out and decentralizing industry while continuing production. The bombings continued into 1946 with smaller yield bombs effective at destroying clustered surface fleets with smaller craft sunk and sailors bathed in radiation on ships large enough to withstand a blast. Finally, almost a year after the fall of Berlin, the Japanese Empire capitulated.

The effects of nuclear war became apparent, especially as the American Baby Boom also saw disfigurations due to fallout carried on prevailing winds (including the recently discovered jet streams). One of the early decisions of the fledgling United Nations was to ban atomic weapons completely, a move lauded by scientists and the public alike. While leaders like Churchill felt Communism would be the next looming enemy, the Allied effort in boosting USSR production also brought along a wave of demand for consumerist items like Coca-Cola. Stalin himself capitalized on giving the people what they wanted, securing his legacy as a champion of hope in the darkest times and a gift-giver in times of plenty. Today Ded Moroz (often called "Russian Santa Claus") is depicted with a mustache and not a beard in a portrayal of Stalin.

Guest Post: PM Reynaud issues the Algiers Declaration

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History, asking "what if Third Republic had fought on after the fall of France?" co-written with Allen W. McDonnell.

June 21, 1940 -

The incomparable Prime Minister of the Third Republic Paul Reynaud declared his intention to fight on from the new capital of Algiers where his embattled government would continue to direct the war effort and govern Free France.

With a growing sense of defeatism in the air, Reynaud had followed the hawkish advice of his recently appointed Undersecretary for War, Charles de Gaulle, who had recommended a withdrawal to North Africa. The only alternative was capitulation; other military figures were urging surrender, while some politicians the formation of a government-in-exile, essentially following the same route as other defeated nations whose ministers were now based in London, England. Given the risk of reprisals on the mainland, Reynaud's decision was certainly bold, taken for the glory of France and perhaps motivated by a fear of kicking their heels in London for the duration of the war.

The implications of this decision would last for decades. Whereas Winston Churchill had offered Reynaud a Franco-British Union to fight on, Reynaud decided to take a very different, more patriotic, route that would eventually see Algeria fully integrated into a modern bi-continental, multi-faith state. A blended economic super-power, rich in oil reserves and Western technology, by the millennium she would become the eighth largest populated country in the world.

Rewarded for his courageous stand, Reynaud would be strongly supported by the British Empire and the still-neutral United States. The Third Republic had millions of dollars of military goods on order from the USA preparing to ship across the Atlantic now re-directed for delivery to Casablanca. She would use her New World colonies as collateral to get the needed bank loans until Congress voted to extend lend-lease arrangements to the government in Algeria. Meanwhile, de Gaulle, as the newly appointed Minister of War, gathered up colonial French forces from around Africa and the Americas along with escaping naval and army units from France proper. Forging these diverse forces into an effective modern military took months, but, by April 1941, they were advancing into Italian territory using American Garand rifles and British food and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, Reynaud focused his efforts on political development, taking the courageous step of granting full voting rights to Algerian Muslims. Ironically, this was a historic decision that the electorate of occupied France would have surely vetoed. Yet another problem was the status of other members of the French Union. Algeria and her three departments were a formal part of Metropolitan France, but Tunisia and Morocco were protectorates, and Indochina and Polynesia, etc., had their own local governance structures. Ultimately, some progressive steps were required in order to "squeeze the lemon" to unify the command of colonial forces within a French Empire. The path to this citizenship development was Reynaud's policy famously known as "Algeria First."

Having gone native to some limited extent, Reynaud and de Gaulle had essentially become pied-noirs. The Blackfoots, so-called because of the black boots worn by French soldiers compared to the barefoot Algerians, were an ethno-cultural group of people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French colonial rule from 1830. These émigres enjoyed a high life, occupying a salubrious urban area around the cities of Oran and Algiers as well as owning farmland in the interior. Meanwhile, the indigenes lived in the crushing poverty of the kasbah. It would be Reynaud's legacy to integrate these communities such that a post-war Algeria would flourish inside a victorious Metropolitan France. De Gaulle would later succeed him as president to face the consequence of West Germany's famous "nein" - the rejection of Franco-Algeria's application to join the nascent European Economic Community as a member state.

Author's Note:

In reality, German commanders met with French officials to negotiate an end to hostilities. In 1967 de Gaulle would say "non" to Great Britain joining the EEC partly due to commitments and trading links with the Commonwealth.

Provine's Addendum:

The abrupt shift of French Republican affirmation of Algerian peoples created a very different political landscape after the war ended. With more than seven million Algerians, they were a small contingent compared to some 42 million French, but local affairs gained enough significance that the French government was required to take note. Algerian soldiers served with distinction in Europe, and necessities of improving agriculture and industry leading up to retaking the continent, as well as supporting it afterward during its own reconstruction, poured investments into Africa. Some French conservatives sought to roll back Algerian advantages, but the financial benefits of improving developing economies as new markets proved too effective. Other colonies like Indochina quickly argued for similar footing, and France was faced with treating its colonies as equals or losing them outright.

Investing in her colonies proved to be the advantageous maneuver with being denied partnership in the EEC (though some economists the denial was because of it). France experienced generational waves of Muslims moving to the continent, while French education sent engineers, administrators, and technicians back into the empire for further development. The EEC instead looked to the UK for membership, focusing on connecting with the English-speaking world with its German-speaking near cousins. Soon the EEC would expand to Greece, Austria, the Iberian nations, and into the Nordic countries and then further east across Europe as the Soviet Bloc crumbled. Today Europe is a three-fold economy with the EEC, Russian influence, and the religiously diverse France, where an education ministry case requiring the removal of headscarves was laughed out of French courts as students obviously had their rights to privacy.

Guest Post: Democratic Eisenhower

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

Oct 14, 1890 -

Future five-star general and later Democratic candidate for president of the United States, David Dwight Eisenhower was born in his hometown of Denison, Texas.

"Tex" was of German origin and raised in a deeply religious household that set aside specific times at breakfast and at dinner for daily family Bible reading. His family struggled to survive crushing poverty, but his father, David, eventually managed to make a profitable success of the family store at great personal cost to his time available for his son.

Seeking his own fame and fortune, the younger David Eisenhower attended officer training at West Point Military College, a choice that saddened his mother, who felt that warfare was "rather wicked," but she did not overrule his decision. Her faith was well placed; speaking of himself in 1948, Eisenhower said he was "one of the most deeply religious men I know." His illustrious career in the military would bring him into two wars with Germany, the ancestral country that the Eisenhauer family  had left two centuries earlier. In his leadership, he managed to help plan a successful D-Day and occupation of Germany while holding together a shaky coalition that included Patton, Charles de Gaulle, and British commanders such as Montgomery.

In addition to working with these famous leaders of the greatest generation, the arc of his destiny would cross another magnificent American of European heritage. FDR's ancestor Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt had arrived in New Amsterdam (present-day New York City) sometime between 1638 and 1649. He saw Tex as a natural presidential successor for the 1948 election, but time was against him with his passing in 1945. Instead, Harry S Truman (who initially had a "caretaker" feel to his Administration) occupied the White House for most of two terms, while Tex served as military governor of the American-occupied zone of Germany (1945), Army Chief of Staff (1945-1948), president of Columbia University (1948-1953), and as the first supreme commander of NATO (1951-1952).

Not bound by the Twenty-second Amendment, Truman could have run again in 1952 but was deeply unpopular and tired of office. As a ready replacement, Tex Eisenhower was a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination even without Truman's encouragement. A moderate conservative, he chose Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson for his running mate. As a military hero, he was far better qualified than Stevenson to handle the Cold War that arguably Truman had created. However, the problem was that the Democrats had been in the White House for five consecutive terms and the country was ready for a sharp change of direction.

The keynote speech at the Republican National Convention was delivered by another five-star general, Douglas MacArthur, who had become a hero to Republicans after Truman relieved him of command the previous year. He condemned the Truman administration for America's perceived loss of status on the international stage, including criticism of the Yalta Conference and the administration's handling of the war in Korea. MacArthur also criticized Truman on the domestic front, blaming his administration for wages that failed to keep pace with post-World War II inflation. MacArthur had high hopes of receiving the nomination himself, but his ill-tempered speech was not well received and he dropped out of sight. This was the first misstep that sent the Republic downwards on a negative trajectory despite their win in 1952 with Taft.

Former Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft narrowly won the general election, but he was in even worse health than FDR had been in 1944 and died after only six months in office. This calamity would bring Vice-president Earl Warren, former governor of California, into the Oval Office. Seen as too close to the unsuccessful 1944/48 candidate Thomas Dewey, Warren was despised by the GOP base. Despite his infamous internment of Japanese-Americans during WW2, President Warren made great strides with Civil Rights legislation, stoking violent opposition in the South and splitting the conservative Republicans. Warren would be assassinated in Dallas during the course of a hard-fought presidential election campaign with Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

By now deep into retirement, Eisenhower blamed a "psychopathic" action for taking the president's life. He would be asked to serve his country one more time, heading a Commission on the Assassination of President Warren, known unofficially as the "Eisenhower Commission."

Author's Note:

In reality, the Eisenhowers lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892 and later returned to Kansas, with $24 (equivalent to $782 in today's money) to their name. In this scenario, we imagine that his family store is a success, but, in so doing, his father has less time for him triggering subtle changes:  is not nicknamed Ike, and does not reverse his two Christian names to "Dwight David."

Ike and FDR maintained formal, but amiable, relations during the war although Mamie and Eleanor disliked each other. He had mixed views about FDR's domestic legacy but considered him to be as good a Commander in Chief during WWII as Americans could have asked for. Sitting President Harry S. Truman tried to get him to agree to run as a Democrat and succeed him, and so did a number of other Democrats. Eisenhower had never officially announced what party he supported, because he felt that was impolitic as an active-duty soldier.

Provine's Addendum:

Warren's assassination brought great turmoil to the Republican Party, especially since it was after the 1956 convention and many questions rose on how ballots would look in different states. VP and former Ohio governor John Bricker stepped up with many saying he could immediately take on the role of president even if "Warren" were listed on the ballot. The issue proved moot as "JFK" won out in the rallying cry for the election even above the "grief" vote for Warren.

Kennedy's two terms would be dedicated to finding a new balance in the Cold War along with improving civil rights at home. Eisenhower's report decried racism as the root cause of Warren's death as Warren had built policy following the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Kennedy federalized National Guard to defend African American students going to school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in accordance with integration despite the hundreds of protestors who attempted to block them. As many of the protestors proved not to be even from Little Rock, Kennedy went a step further in preserving the peace by pushing protestors farther and farther away unless they could prove school involvement. To some, this proved a violation of the First Amendment rights; the later Supreme Court decision determined that protests against a race, and even hate speech, were not protected under the First Amendment as an inherent provocation. The decision was a major win especially for Martin Luther King, Jr., who appealed to it for federal protection during the marches in Selma, AL, and the Justice Department crackdown that ended the long FBI directorship of J. Edgar Hoover. King, of course, would later go on to be the first African American president of the United States.

Guest Post: British Permanently Seize Manila

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History based on an idea by Mike Mac.

September 24, 1762 -

A British fleet sailed into Manila Bay, capturing the greatest Spanish fortress in the western Pacific. The expedition from Madras, led by Brigadier-General William Draper and Rear-Admiral Samuel Cornish, comprised eight ships of the line, three frigates, and four store ships with a force of seven thousand regulars, sailors and marines.

The Great Powers' competing interests over trade and colonies was the underlying cause of the Seven Years War. Yet the fall of Manilla (and the nearby principal port of Cavite) created a critical point of dispute for the negotiators of the Treaty of Paris. The British needed a base in the Pacific, while the Manila galleons contributed to Spain's continued, though greatly diminishing, wealth. Without a reciprocal trade, Spain simply could not afford to give up the Philippines to the British.

Unable to reach a mutually agreeable settlement in Paris, the tension would escalate until 1766, when a spark culminated in the Anglo-Spanish War of the Indies. During the interim, imperialists had considered creating a British East Indies, putting the islands under the control of the British East India Company, maybe even creating a home-from-home grandly named "New Albion." Certainly the Christian majority population created imaginative opportunities that would never be attempted by colonial authorities back in Madras. But instead the British took the historically significant decision to divide the Philippines into the three separate governing provinces of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

Author's Note:

In reality, once Manila fell to British troops, the churches and government offices were ransacked, valuables were taken and historical documents such as Augustinian records, government documents, and even the copper plates for the grand 18th-century Murillo Velarde map of the Philippines were ransacked along with the naval stores at the Cavite Naval Yard, the paintings in the Governor General's Palace, the contents of Intramuros churches and the possessions of most wealthy houses. Rape, homicide, and vandalism also rampaged through the city in what is known as the first "Rape of Manila." The British demanded a ransom of four million dollars from the Spanish government to stop the plundering of the city, to which Archbishop Rojo agreed in order to avoid further destruction. However, the resistance from the provisional Spanish colonial government established by members of the Royal Audience of Manila and their Filipino allies prevented British forces from taking control of territory beyond the neighbouring towns of Manila and Cavite. The British occupation was ended as part of the peace settlement of the Seven Years War.

Provine's Addendum:

Anglicization proved difficult in the former Philippines since the Spanish culture had been introduced to the islands centuries before. Many in Parliament saw the islands as an albatross around the empire's neck. Still, the East India Company had huge promises of wealth, and the venture lumbered on. In the nineteenth century, imperialization became much more effective with huge leaps in industrial goods like repeating rifles and transport like the steam engine. British investment poured into the islands, focusing on the most anglicized areas in Luzon in the north first, leaving the more southerly Visayas and Mindanao island groups less developed.

In the twentieth century, Britain found a new rival in the expanding Japanese Empire. On December 8, 1941, Japanese forces seized the islands by overcoming the small, but hard-fighting, resistance force left behind as most troops had been pulled toward Europe. The United States balked at Japanese aggression but remained as neutral as it could be in Lend-Lease to the Allies. Japan then moved on to attack Australia and India, seemingly threatening to swallow up all of the British and Dutch colonies in the region. However, Japan's navy soon found itself greatly overextended. Upon the entry of the United States into the fray in 1943 following the sinking of US shipping, their forces were readily rolled back while Japanese cities faced new war technology in the atomic bomb.

After the war ended, the former Philippines left the British Empire like many other colonies. War soon broke out again, ultimately seeing the island group split into pro-capitalist Luzon in the north and communist "South Philippines" with Visayas and Mindanao seeing further political turbulence from the Sunni Islam residents later seeking independence in the southwest.

Guest Post: Reformation Fails in Germany

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History based upon an original idea from Eric Oppen in a variant ending to Jeff Provine's scenario of the same name with input from a Quora article.

1517 -

With the Renaissance underway, the emergence of a series of technological developments increasingly challenged the seven long centuries of Papal authority across North Europe. The principle of political legitimacy had originally been established by Pope Leo III crowning the Frankish king Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in the year 800. Now the emergence of man-portable firearms broadened the warrior class, loosening the Vatican's indirect control of national rulers. Meanwhile, the printing press had brought expanded literacy, a rising self-awareness threat to the corrupt and abusive "indulgences," the extortion of payments in exchange for remission from sin.

Seven centuries after Charlemagne, and coincidentally seven Pope Leos later, the German priest Martin Luther translated the Vulgate Bible into his native language, discovering glaring inconsistencies in Catholic teachings. He was provoked to action by Pope Leo X's appointment of Albrecht von Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, as general indulgence commissioner. 

The form of protest was nailing Ninety-Five Theses to Wittenburg Town Hall, placing him at the epicentre of these struggles. Meanwhile, northerly Germans were poised to seize upon this theological dispute as an opportunity to gain political independence from the Holy Roman Empire.

From his lengthy experience of dealing with reformers and heretics, Pope Leo X seriously considered deploying a series of papal theologians and envoys against Luther. Perhaps if there was just a theological dimension this approach might have worked, but ultimately he decided that the rebellious atmosphere was an argument against responding slowly "with great care as is proper." Instead, he chose to seize the initiative by agreeing to meet with Luther and find a resolution. Some welcome reforms of indulgences followed. However, in a broader sense, this change was a generation too late, even if it certainly took the steam out of the present moment and events appeared to settle down.

As was the way with the Renaissance Period, the figures in this intense drama soon passed from the stage. Martin Luther was not destined to be the Reformator; instead his father convinced him to become a monk. Meanwhile, Pope Leo X, aged only 45, died four years later, going to his grave believing that he had dealt with the troubles in northern Germany. Of course, the deeper truth was that Roman Catholicism had been constantly suffering schisms throughout history, most notably the separation of the Orthodox Church. Trouble had been brewing ever since the time of the heretic John Wycliffe, who supported King Edward III's refusal to pay taxes to the pope, boldly declaring, "England belongs to no pope. The pope is but a man, subject to sin, but Christ is the Lord of Lords and this kingdom is to be held directly and solely of Christ alone."

Heretical problems continued to spring up. Clement VII, deemed "the most unfortunate of the popes," would have to confront a fresh challenge from England, and again it was driven by monetary interests. The imperative to seize the monasteries was driven by a lack of revenue to fund the war with France. Henry VIII, formerly honored by Clement VII as a defender of the faith, and Thomas Cramner led attempts to force a separation through a divorce with the queen. Cramner had a unique perspective, having served as ambassador at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, and establishing first contact with a Continental reformer, Simon Grynaeus. He was a humanist based in Basel, Switzerland, and a follower of the Swiss reformers Huldrych Zwingli and Johannes Oecolampadius.

Because Catherine of Aragon was the aunt of the pope's sponsor Charles V, Henry's request for a divorce was impossible to grant. The English Reformation was inevitable, but surprisingly the high anglicism emerged that was barely distinguishable from Catholicism. This was spread through the teachings of the Church of England, later on via the Protestant Bible of Mary Queen of Scots (who succeeded Henry's daughter Elizabeth I). Instead, the heretical challenge would come from Switzerland and then France. With France split by division, the Huguenots fled overseas, creating colonies that would seed Protestantism across the world.

Author's Note:

In reality, Luther was disenfranchised, writing "I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul," and soon set out to reform the practice of selling indulgences when only God may forgive. The resulting Reformation would split Europe along battle lines of Catholics and Protestants for centuries.

Provine's Addendum

While troubles for Catholic authority continued to boil up in Switzerland, England, and France, the Scandinavia and the Baltic region embraced the reformed stance of the pope. Even famed Swedish monarchist Gustav II Adolphus, whose beliefs seemed to lean toward absolute rule, recited Matthew's verse, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what are God's." This political coziness turned out to be a great benefit in the eighteenth century as Sweden moved into the power vacuum of the declining Poland-Lithuania. Karl XII appealed to Rome for aid in his invasion of Russia, which led to thousands of volunteers across southern Europe marching to join him against the Orthodox believers. Sweden's occupation of Russia would prove costly and ultimately a failure, leaving the next centuries to the Austria as the great bastion in the east.

Guest Post: Commander Horthy Calls for Aid

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Jeff Provine, Eric Oppen and John Braungart.

August 9, 1917 -

The future of the sprawling Habsburg lands had become a power struggle contested by the newly crowned Emperor Franz Ferdinand versus Miklós Horthy, a former naval aide-de-camp to his late uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph. A striking militaristic figure, Horthy had become the rallying point for the Magyar faction as the Hungarian commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship ironically named SMS Habsburg.

As fate would have it, the aging Franz Joseph had died months short of the expiry of the Ausgleich Constitution of 1867 in which he had created the dual monarchy, two kingdoms united by one crown. Despite his reforms, the empire had become the "Sick Old Man of Europe" during the long years of his reign. Franz Ferdinand as successor aimed to reverse this slide into ruin by scrapping this outdated imperial constitution. The imperative to federalize the Habsburg lands was driven by a combination of his liberalism, and his own very personal reaction to the assassination attempt in Sarajevo that had brought the Great Powers to the brink of war.

Needless to say, the justification for this controversial decision was strenuously objected to by the Hungarians and, especially, the Magyars. Unfortunately for their nationalistic aspirations, Franz Ferdinand had pre-empted their rebellion by cultivating a close relationship with Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany to ensure foreign support needed to keep a Hungarian revolt from developing into a full civil war. Horthy aimed to restore the full statehood that had been lost by the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, but he had made bitter internal enemies for his controversial plan to Magyarize the majority of non-Magyar residents living in Hungary.

Vienna and Berlin shared a common vision for a United States of Greater Austria, which they both saw as the optimal solution to the structural weakness in governing the Habsburg lands. At some level, this framework mirrored the logic of the German Empire's unification of princely states. Despite the Magyar resistance, it seemed to work, at least in the short term. The German-supported Habsburgs were firmly in ascendance after eight months, and, by August of 1917, Commander Horthy was forced to call for aid from the Triple Entente powers of Russia, France, and Great Britain.

Very much an offensive alliance, the Triple Entente certainly took issue with German expansionism. But, Hungary wasn't Belgium and it would be desperately hard for them to support the Magyars even if they really wanted to. Due to the geography of Central Europe, this desired response would require a direct intervention by the Tsar's army to fight the Austro-German forces in Hungary. The prospects were looking rather bleak. In recent years, the Russians had adopted a cynical foreign policy, shamelessly working with both the Austrians and the Ottomans to achieve access to the Mediterranean, in direct contravention of what the Southern Slavs perceived as their vital interests.

A real problem was that the Tsar could not been seen to support separatist republicans for fear it would undermine Romanov rule, whereas Paris and London viewed Central Europe as a powder keg waiting to explode. Horthy would be disappointed, and Franz Ferdinand's declaration of a confederation of states was militarily unchallenged. However, the Entente statesmen were near-certain that the experiment would fail and they were only preparing to play the long game.

Author's Note:

In reality, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and Miklós Horthy served as regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar period and most of World War II.

Provine's Addendum:

The twentieth century became an era of empires that transcended even the centuries before. Lessons learned from Horthy's Magyarization efforts showed that reforms needed to balance patriotism with support for minorities rather than populist nationalism. Franz Ferdinand, who had previously argued to extend status quo with trialism (a third crown so make himself emperor of the Croats as well) instead sought economic incentives for the disenfranchised and balance among the many ethnicities. This required a skillful hand in striating politics from local elections to "nations" to a unified parliament merging further interests with the two parliaments that had existed for the Austrians and Hungarians. Some royalists decried Franz Ferdinand seemingly weakening the emperor's power since the crown would go to Charles I as Franz Ferdinand's own sons were discounted due to his socially imbalanced marriage. Others saw these actions, as well as the marriage itself, a much-needed equalizing in a rapidly changing world. They felt their opinions were proved as both of Franz Ferdinand's sons, Maximilian and Ernst, would serve as ranking members of parliament.

The other major powers of Europe kept their attention on overseas expansion. While most of the political borders had been set by the time of Franz Ferdiand's reign, there were still plenty of opportunities for economic influence. Spheres grew up and eventually overlapped, leading to conflict such as the Japano-Dutch War over Chinese and Indonesian land-holdings. The Western Pacific Accords redefined colonial boundaries between them as well as American, British, French, Russian, and German interests. Seeing that international discussion and diplomacy would be necessary, the Congress of Vienna became a permanent institution. Just as the meeting of European nations after the fall of Napoleon mapped political developments, so would its namesake, continually hosted by the emperor for generations.

Guest Post: Breckinridge Compromise

This post first appeared on Today in Alternate History with input from Allen W. McDonnell.

November 6, 1860 - James Buchanan dies on election day

The precarious health of sixty-nine-year-old President James Buchanan was near final collapse. He had spent four years being unwell, suffering a variety of ailments ever since contracting the so-called "National Hotel Disease" prior to his inauguration. This dreaded condition had already taken the lives of his nephew and private secretary, Eskridge Lane.

The absence of firm presidential authority could not have come at a worse time. As he drew his last breath, seven Deep South cotton states prepared to secede if the "black Republican" Abraham Lincoln was elected president over the multitude of other candidates. Not yet forty years old, the young and vigorous Vice President John Breckinridge was a huge supporter of states rights and voluntary association. But he had no chance of winning the election himself because the national convention had been unable to agree on a unified platform. Worse still, the nomination of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas had alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats due to his support for the concept of popular sovereignty.

At this point, the Democrats had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If it was too late the save the Union, then at least the sudden demise of Buchanan presented an unexpected opportunity to avert the outbreak of a bloody civil war. There was barely a Union army to speak of, and more than half of those forces would be loyal to the south. Certainly, there had been many compromises proposed before and brilliant minds put forward imaginative mental frameworks, but the national issue now was about expedience, avoiding an unnecessary tragedy.

For the first time, minds, and political will, became properly focused on solutioning. To de-escalate the situation, Breckinridge made a bold 'farewell' offer to the fire-eaters. The Union would vacate federal property in the seceded states, and these in turn would reimburse the Union for the full value of those facilities and also the costs of transporting any employees who chose to return to federal territory.

The founding fathers of the Confederacy listed the continuation of slavery as their primary justification in the various articles of secession. They dreamt of annexing Mexico and the Caribbean to create slave states out of those regions, but, instead, the seceding states were off to a hesitant start with a rump nation that was weak economically. Nevertheless, they were determined to meet Breckinridge's offer.

Unwilling to follow the "rash secession" of the lower South, the "Old Dominion" of Virginia stood aside; indeed, it was in the state capital of Richmond that Southern Democrats had nominated Breckinridge. While his offer was under consideration by the Deep South, further states chose not to secede, and the Breckinridge Compromise was finally accepted in good spirit on Christmas Eve 1860. In an act of selfless courage, Breckinridge was onboard the Star of the West when it evacuated the federals on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Meanwhile, President-elect Abraham Lincoln, who had his own pressures, was rapidly making political calculations. Mainly, this was about the long-term future of a viable slave-holders republic, the capital of which was Montgomery, Alabama, with a population of less than 10,000 people. De facto leader Jefferson Davis declared, "All we ask is to be left alone." Lincoln anticipated that a seven-state Confederacy could not survive in its present form despite being a geographic entity stretching from the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean, larger than many European countries.

There were many complex economic and political factors to consider, including the questionable governance ability of the Fire-eaters, the negative reaction of the great powers, mechanization, and slavery being on its way out as a viable labor system. Ultimately, the real question became when the seven states would return to the Union, and beyond that, whether the hero-of-the-hour Breckinridge might win the 1864 election. The paradoxical result of this outcome would be for Lincoln to be remembered as a do-nothing president like Buchanan.

Author's Note:

In reality, Buchanan recovered in 1857 and Lincoln was inaugurated as planned.

Provine's Addendum:

The Confederacy soon fell into political turmoil of its own making as Texas found it had very different  political interests from the other states, particularly as the issue of funding a navy versus frontier forts in the West. Texas soon seceded, again reestablished as the Republic of Texas, which would normalize relations with the United States over questions of the Red River boundary. This irony was not lost on anyone of the day, nor commentators later.

Fearful of losing more ground, most leaders of the Confederacy worked to drive public spirit with a few key causes. Runaway slaves was an issue of particular interest, although the Union to the north was steadfast in granting freedom following the post-Secession congress to be largely anti-slavery. Remaining slave states began a timetable for complete manumission with federal dollars paying for the lost "property" according to arguments based on the Fifth Amendment. The Confederacy knew it had no hopes of winning a war to stop the flow of the Underground Railroad, especially as Abraham Lincoln did plenty of saber-rattling to ensure that New Orleans remained a free port for Union river traffic.

Rather than looking northward, the Confederacy turned south in hopes of conquering Cuba. They became embroiled in the Ten Years' War, which became a muddled mess as the clearer lines between independence and loyalty to the Spanish Crown blurred over Confederate interests. As the war dragged on, male slaves were offered freedom for volunteering, their masters paid by the government; however, stories of the suffering and disease in Cuba meant few actually volunteered themselves. Eventually the Confederacy pulled out of the costly war, bankrupt as a nation and scrambling for international support. South Carolina would be the next state to secede, again, this time establishing itself as an independent nation. The other states had louder and louder factions calling for a return to the Union, leading to eventual revolution that would rock the former slave-holding states.