September 2, 31 BC - Octavian Defeated at the Battle of Actium

The War of Actium became the final act in nearly a century of political instability in Rome. The latest war, spurred by senators assassinating the previous war's victor, Julius Caesar, in the Forum itself, had been won by the Second Triumvirate of Caesar's great-nephew and adopted son Octavian and two of his most trusted generals, Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony). The alliance soon collapsed with Lepidus disgraced, and Octavian sought to defeat his rival Antony, who had grown to legendary status with victories in the East. He had even taken up with Cleopatra, Julius's former love, in Egypt despite being Octavian's brother-in-law. Anthony divorced Octavia, married Cleopatra, and wrote a new will that all of his possessions would go to the children he had with Cleopatra as well as granting Julius and Cleopatra's sixteen-year-old son Caesarion huge realms to rule from the Roman conquests. Octavian stirred the senate with propaganda to declare war on Egypt to win the lands back legally. Antony and a large faction of senators took up arms in Cleopatra's support.

The battleground for Octavian's Rome and Antony's Egypt proved to be Greece, where many of Anthony's allies from the senate had secured a broad region of support. Octavian moved his troops on the peninsula north of Actium in western Greece to counter Anthony's armies while harassing Anthony's waterborne supply lines with his navy, superior in numbers and speed. Octavian avoided a major land battle directly with Anthony, instead winning a gradual war of attrition as Antony's army stagnated on the opposite side of the Ambracian Gulf. With Antony's support disintegrating, Cleopatra suggested falling back to Alexandria for the winter with garrisons for their allies and launching a fresh campaign the next year. Antony determined he would use his quinqueremes and quadriremes, the largest battleships of the day, to smash through Octavian's smaller Liburian patrol boats on the north side and gain open sea. While Octavian was busy with Antony, Cleopatra's support fleet could slip away. Antony would then disengage and cover the retreat.

Much like all best-laid plans, they quickly went awry. Facing a choppy sea, Antony's large ships were barely maneuverable, especially with the plague of malaria that had reduced them to minimal rowers. Octavian brought his ships up to bottle-up Antony's fleet, and Cleopatra escaped through the gap in Octavian's lines. At first a promising wind blew to support the Egyptians, but then it abruptly turned against them. Seeing it as a sign from the gods, Cleopatra turned her ships about and attacked Octavian's fleet from the flank and behind.

Although Octavian had superior numbers, his ships were surrounded with many of them caught uselessly in the middle. Those on the outermost edges fought to a gradual standstill, and then it was Antony's battleships that won the day. They served as floating fortresses, moving slowly but surely, to annihilate ship after ship. What of Octavian's forces could escape did so, but Octavian's body was found after the battle so badly burned that it had to be recognized by Julian family amulets.

Instead of falling back to Alexandria, Antony hurried to capitalize on his surprise victory by moving on Rome itself. Many of Octavian's former allies swarmed to his side. Others felt it was best to flee, and Antony repeated his previous venture with Julius Caesar hunting down those who resisted them through Octavian's holdings in Hispania. Antony restructured Roman nobility by rewarding those loyal to him, establishing a generational dependence on the wealth of Egypt, particularly its bountiful harvests of grain that fed what essentially became a client state.

Cleopatra was hardly welcome in Rome the first time she came in 46 BC with Julius Caesar, but this time the Romans were too afraid to displease her. She soon returned to Egypt, and Egyptian culture flooded Rome with cults of Isis and Osiris. In 12 BC, Gaius Cestius completed as his burial chamber the first pyramid in Rome, one of many more to follow. Caesarion, Antony's chief heir and adopted son, was not only considered the son of deified Julius Caesar but also deified himself. Though Caesarion would only have four extended visits to Rome during his lifetime, one was to dedicate his own temple to himself on the Palatine Hill.

Instead, Caesarion dedicated his life to formalizing the new Egyptian empire. He inherited a firm hand over Rome itself as well as a sizeable personal empire that stretched from Greece to Armenia in the Donations of Alexandria that had started the War of Actium. Caesarion's half-brother Alexander Helios became ruler of Parthia through a marriage orchestrated by Mark Antony, while his half-sister, Selene, married King Juba II of Numidia and Mauretania. Caesarion dispatched his younger half-brother, Ptolemy Philadelphus, to Rome to serve as pontifex maximus and manage affairs in the northwestern side of his empire.

Egypt began a new era as a naval empire. Its western fleet roamed west of the Pillars of Hercules sailing north to Britannia for tin and south for African gold. The eastern fleet sailed for trade with India and a sea route to southern Parthia. Dreams of joining the two through a canal would require centuries to realize; until then, eastern Egypt remained the focus of the flow of goods unloading and reloading. Egyptian Thebes (once Luxor) and Antinoopolis became two of the largest cities in the world as transition sites along the Nile. Large trade fleets circumnavigated the continent of Africa, repeating the three-year journey along the route commissioned by Necho II six centuries earlier. Even after Egypt's empire splintered and fell away from rebellion and barbarian incursion, Egyptian-founded port cities still traded from Africa to Indonesia.


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In reality, Octavian won the Battle of Actium, much in thanks to Quintus Dellius deserting Antony and turning over his battle plans and Antony missing the signal from Cleopatra to retreat and misinterpreting it as a rout. Antony and Cleopatra did fall back to Alexandria, where they committed suicide after Octavian laid siege. Octavian became Pharaoh and held Egypt as a personal possession, adding it to further legal powers that established him as Augustus Caesar, the first of a long line of Roman emperors. Egyptian grain continued as a key economic force behind the emperors for centuries to come.

September 11, 1777 - Washington Shot in Ambush

Britain hoped to strike a blow to the Revolutionary cause by marching up from Chesapeake Bay to seize Philadelphia, the young nation's capital. Near Brandywine Creek, Patrick Ferguson, a Scot sniper captain, came upon a small patrol of American soldiers. Rather than expected ragtag scouts, it was a handful of soldiers alongside two officers, one in a blue coat with a "high-cocked hat" and another in an outrageous continental cavalry uniform.

Although only 33, Ferguson was already a seasoned veteran from the end of the Seven Years War and numerous military actions since. He had handpicked his command and armed them with breech-loading rifles of his own design following cutting-edge firearm technology. While firing on officers was considered dishonorable, Ferguson had heard the stories of American troops doing just that, "fighting like natives." Ferguson gave the order to shoot.

The American officers proved to be none other than Commander-in-Chief George Washington and his Polish adviser, Count Casimir Pulaski, famed for his flamboyant dress as a hussar. Washington had decided to personally survey the landscape and British movements in anticipation of a stand at Brandywine. His zealousness proved to be his undoing, though historians argue it may have been better for the British to have captured Washington than killed him outright.

As news spread of Washington's death, the Revolutionaries' response was vengeance. The ferocious Battle of Brandywine was initially in favor of the Americans as the British fell back from a vigorous assault. The unconditioned American troops, however, overextended themselves and soon were forced to retreat. It nearly became a rout that could have cost the Americans their largest army along with their highest ranking leader, but General Nathanael Greene brought forward the reserves under his command to cover the retreat. Soldiers soon added "Hero of Brandywine" to Greene's nickname as "The Fighting Quaker" who had joined the cause despite his family's background in the Society of Friends.

Congress fled Philadelphia, and the American army fell back to Valley Forge. Britain hoped this would bring an end to the war, but the rebels proved resilient. Congress continued its efforts from York, PA, confirming Horatio Gates as the new Commander-in-Chief. Although not as popular as Washington, Gates did prove to be an effective organizer. Newly drilled through the winter and with much improved supply lines established, the new American army impressed France enough to win an alliance in 1778. With Americans receiving French naval support and widespread popular support, the British gave up trying to make headway in the northern colonies and ultimately abandoned Philadelphia. They even offered a peace commission, which was rejected. Instead, the British decided upon the Southern Strategy of focusing their efforts in the Tory-filled southern colonies where loyalists could be readily found for information or supplies.

Gates dispatched Greene to the South, soon followed by another hero, Benedict Arnold. Arnold had been wounded at Saratoga and only returned to service in May 1778. Despite Arnold being considered a national treasure, Gates did not trust him as Arnold had disobeyed orders when attacking and routinely questioned his strategies to the point of shouting matches. The odd pair of a forge-owning Quaker's son and a would-be merchant, both Connecticuters fighting in the South, surprisingly proved to be successful. Greene followed a path of "unconventional warfare" that was decried by the British for its effectiveness in protecting and striking out of rebel hotspots, such as the famous raid in the Battle of Camden that tied up British troops enough that Arnold was able to lift the Siege of Charleston, which had already fought off an earlier British attempt in 1776. It was a bitter humiliation to the British that prompted the removal of Henry Clinton, the British Commander-in-Chief of troops in America, who had determined to lead the Charleston expedition personally. Arnold proved popular among the elites in Charleston and was granted his request of military command of the city. Greene was content with his revenge of Washington through Virginian Colonel William Campbell, who led the charge that killed Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain, NC.

Britain was increasingly frustrated in its efforts to raid by the French navy, which bottled up the British troops at the last major foothold in the colonies, New York. In the enormous Battle of New York of 1781, Gates led the Americans to victory in taking the city before Clinton's replacement, Guy Carleton, famed defender of Quebec, could arrive. The damage, particularly to the property of loyalists, many of whom fled with only the shirts on their backs, would be legendary, but it was the last of the major battles of the war, which would end officially with the Treaty of Paris 1783.

Though the war was over, the question of how to govern the United States continued. Congress remained controversial, and there was major concern for the rights of the former colonies, especially from South Carolina where Arnold had remained and grown into a wealthy merchant and politician. Greene, who had returned to Connecticut facing substantial debt, sold off his Southern plantations awarded for his service and took up a position with the United States government negotiating with Native Americans. When the Articles of Confederation proved unable to manage the states together, a Constitutional Convention was called. Gates's offer to serve as president was politely declined due to the bad taste in many New Yorkers' mouths his name brought, and ultimately Nathanael Greene won the position with his experience in managing negotiations.

The Constitution ratified in 1788 brought about a system of checks and balances along with a much stronger Executive branch. Though Arnold continued to voice his concerns about federalism, the office of the president proved to be a great enticement to him. Although inherently self-motivated, it proved to be a unifying matter that drew support from liberal Jeffersonians. Arnold would beat out the legally mind John Adams to become the first national president with promises to maintain balance. He worked alongside the economically minded Alexander Hamilton to establish a shared-branch form of national bank that begrudgingly satisfied both federalists and those fearing federal tyranny. Its success at minimizing speculation while supplying a steady stream of investment would soon lead Hamilton to the Executive Mansion himself.

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In reality, after Ferguson had given the order, he recalled it, feeling disgust at the ungentlemanly action of ambushing an officer. Ferguson shouted at Washington, who glanced up and then merely rode on. After being wounded, the doctor mentioned Washington and Pulaski, and Ferguson noted, "I could have lodged half a dozen balls in or about him." Ferguson later participated in raids and then in the British Southern campaign, dying under a volley of at least eight shots at Kings Mountain.

Guest Post: Ivy League Nixon treats JFK as Alger Hiss

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History, answering the question posed by Bill Whalen in his LA Times article, "The many what-ifs of Richard Nixon."

Richard M. Nixon, ace student of Whittier High, was tested with a prodigious I.Q. score of 143 and recognized as one of the most promising and accomplished high school seniors in California. He graduated third in his class of 207 and was deservedly offered a tuition grant to attend Harvard University.
Proving to be an outstanding student with an encyclopedic mastery of the law, he repeated this academic success again graduating third in his class. However, like many of his student colleagues, his budding legal career was suddenly interrupted by the outbreak of World War Two. Some astutely legal-minded fellows strongly encouraged him to exploit his status as a birthright Quaker and seek a military deferment.

Instead, Nixon applied for and received a Navy commission and was assigned to duty in the Pacific. In that theatre, he first met John F. Kennedy in the wake of the disastrous sinking of patrol torpedo boat (PT) #109. As a self-made man from a poor family, Nixon was left unimpressed by the embarrassing command failure of this scion of the American mandarin class. Kennedy escaped censure apart from a scolding letter from his elder brother. Disgusted, Nixon made a derisory off-hand comment to a naval colleague, "I call them spoiled rotten. And I tell you what would cure them. A good, old-fashioned trip to my Ohio father's woodshed."

Twenty years later, their paths crossed again, and this time Nixon would prove to be Kennedy's nemesis. Nixon gained national attention as a leading member of the brilliant legal team behind the impeachment of President Kennedy that followed the Vietnam fiasco and multiple personal indiscretions. During this lengthy period of the so-called "Camelot twilight" era, Nixon stayed at the Watergate Hotel. Wire-tapping and later a break-in to his room was widely blamed on Attorney General Robert Kennedy but never proven. Appalled by this extra-judicial action, Nixon had the opportunity to reflect upon his own destiny. It was following the political earthquake of Kennedy's resignation that Nixon retired from the U.S. Navy Reserve and began to consider his own political future.

Author's Note:

In reality, Nixon remained in his hometown and enrolled at his local Quaker college of Whittier because he was needed at the store because of his father's continued illness requiring his mother's care. Nixon famously once said "None of those Harvard b*st*rds!" despite choosing Harvard professors Henry Kissinger and Daniel Patrick Moynihan as his principal foreign and domestic advisers. Kennedy and Nixon were actually good friends; indeed, JFK even made a contribution to Nixon when he was running against Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate.

Provine's Addendum:

The downfall of the Kennedy family set the stage for a narrow Republican win in the 1964 elections. Lyndon Johnson distanced himself from as much of the political damage as possible, though even his long stint in Congress proved forgotten by many in the wake of Nixon's attacks. The Democratic Party was further divided by the loud voice of George Wallace, who cried for states rights in the face of the Civil Rights Act passed in the wake of Kennedy's impeachment, though not removal. Many saw the act as a great unifier for the country to heal old wounds, but others found it divisive. Thanks to the strife as well as Nixon's vehement campaigning in California, narrowly turning the state as Nixon made a public mockery of the "Daisy" television campaign ad, Barry Goldwater came to the White House with Nixon as his vice president. Historians would later comment on it being one of the dirtiest elections in American history, rivaling even the outlandish 1800 election, after which the Jeffersonian hatchetman James Calendar went to prison for slander against Adams, whose own campaign spread the rumor Jefferson would work to legalize and promote prostitution.

Nixon set about to continue his perceived role as the nation's watchdog. With Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover as his right-hand man, Nixon fanned the flames of a new Red Scare on top of uncovering corruption scandals at seemingly every level of government. Goldwater, who promise to "clean up the mess" in Vietnam, focused most of his attention on containment using US air and artillery support without boots on the ground and restructuring the social welfare system in the country to more align with his policies of state-based action. At the 1968 Republican national convention, Goldwater felt pressure to step aside for a Nixon presidency, leading to Nixon's alliance with the growing conservative elements such as California governor Ronald Reagan and the surprising upset that put Nixon at the top of the ballot. Goldwater, betrayed, returned to the senate and later called Nixon "the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life."

Nixon won handily in 1968 as the Democratic Party still struggled to realign itself in recovery from the Kennedy implosion. In 1972, he won again by an even wider margin, though there were growing factions upset by his methods of publicly destroying targets such as corporate polluters to great aplomb while secretly destroying opposition from within. As the nation's bicentennial approached, rumors spread of Nixon looking to overturn the Twenty-second Amendment that disallowed a third term of presidency. When several leaders in Congress and even the Executive branch came forward to reveal it was true, it was a moment those who wanted to derail Nixon had waited for. Nixon denied everything, but his cracked public image soon shattered, and he gave an embittered speech at the 1976 Republican national convention commenting on his victimhood, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Ronald Reagan won the candidacy, but he would lose out to Democratic dark horse James Carter of Georgia, whose two terms built a transparent federal system of social welfare and began the model of taxation on the wealthy like Roosevelt's Revenue Acts that would be followed for decades.

Guest Post: Charles I Dies after Failed Escape Attempt

This article by Allen W. McDonnell first appeared on Today in Alternate History.

On November 11, 1647, while attempting to escape custody at Hampton Court Palace, Charles I falls, striking his head and going into a coma. Under care of the staff , he is given water and broth by using a hollow quill to dribble drops of liquid into his mouth. The nurse is quick to discover that by timing the drops to when the king is exhaling through his nose, his body automatically swallows the drops. Because of the feeding of liquids, the king lingers in his coma until February 14, 1648, when he expires from malnutrition without ever regaining consciousness.Parliament enacted a Council of State rather than a Regency a week after the king lost consciousness. Having seized control during the second Civil War, the Long Parliament decided that removing Charles I and his descendants might be necessary for their very survival and the good of the country. By act of the Council of State following the funeral of Charles I on February 14, 1648, his wife and surviving children along with the captured members of his Privy Council and their families are exiled to the uninhabited island of Saint Helena in the south Atlantic. Along with the elites are sent a number of crown loyalist small farmers and the supplies needed for raising food crops and clearing land and the necessary poultry and livestock to support a self sufficient population.

In preparation for the nobles' arrival, the first fleet departed in February 1648 with two navy guard ships and six transports carrying 200 New Model Army soldiers as guards and 1,200 crown loyalist colonists to build New Edinburg and lay out the farms, plant the crops , and construct storehouses for the supplies on the cargo ships of the fleet. By the time Charles II, his mother, and siblings arrive in September, the Stanley Palace is built and furnished for them. Along with the royal family are 423 crown loyalist nobles and an additional 800 farmers. The main crops are root vegetables like potato, beets, and turnips. The main sources of protein are the wild birds and mammals for the first two years while the farmers expand their poultry flocks and livestock herds to become completely self sufficient.

Back on Great Britain, the Long Parliament begins the arduous process of writing a new constitution, changing the nation from a monarchy into a republic. In place of the king, the new government will be under the Lord Protector elected from the House of Lords with a Privy Council heading each department with half the members coming from each house of Parliament headed by the Prime Minister. To prevent a new monarchy from developing, the Lord Protector serves for life but his own near relatives are ineligible to serve as the next Lord Protector. Every member of the House of Lords who is not closely related to the current Lord Protector is eligible to seek the office upon his death and to be appointed they must win a majority of votes in both houses of Parliament forcing the choice to be widely acceptable.

By the time the new constitution is negotiated and written ending the second English Civil War, years have passed, but in 1651 with the surrender of the last Scottish crown loyalists the new constitution goes into force. The victorious leader of the New Model Army, Oliver Cromwell, is elected first Lord Protector. With Cromwell's unexpected death in 1658, John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester, is elected the second Lord Protector and serves until his death in 1675.

Author's Note:

The Republican constitution is loosely based on the Scandinavian system in use during this period. In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway of this era, when a monarch died or was deposed, the council of nobles would meet and elect a new head of state. Sometimes they would elect the son of the outgoing monarch, but this was not always the case. Also on some occasions, the three sets of nobles would elect the same 'King' and the three Scandinavian nations would be united under one crown; at other times, they would be completely independent of one another in their highest office. The Republican constitution precludes passing authority down a single family tree and keeps the leadership distributed over time throughout the nobility.Provine's Addendum:

As England's empire continued to grow, the constitution would be tested and transformed with the needs of time. Maintaining a class of nobles infuriated many, but it proved a stabilizing agent while everyone aspired to the wealth of such magnitude that they would merit a seat in parliament. Over the eighteenth century, many planters from overseas in the West Indies, Americas, India, and West Africa joined the House of Lords, following the model of Scottish lords being incorporated back into office after the civil wars. The House of Commons grew in a similar suit to represent colonies, creating an extensive network that resolved some of the issues of citizens being so distant from London.

The growth of industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries changed the scope of government. People whose wealth was in corporations rather than land called for their own seats, giving rise to an oligarchy that changed radically in mere based on fortunes in steel, oil, rubber, media, or whatever the product in demand at the moment was. Policies remained vastly pro-business, ultimately leading to revolution for workers rights.

Guest Post: Death of the Tzarevich

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History co-written with Allen W. McDonnell with input from Thomas Wm. Hamilton, Robbie Taylor and Jeff Provine.

23 June 1914 - Tragedy in Saint Petersburg transforms the World Crisis

Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, breathed his last as Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his morganatic Czech wife Sophie Chotek, Duchess of Hohenberg, departed Vienna for a tour of Sarajevo, the provincial capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Partly due to the archduke's recent promotion to inspector general of all the armed forces of Austria-Hungary, Slav nationalists misinterpreted this as a preparation for another war in the Balkans. This was despite Franz Ferdinand's cherished dream of reforming the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire.

Franz Ferdinand was the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph I but had become heir presumptive when his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, committed suicide with his mistress Mary Vetsera at his hunting lodge in Mayerling. The emperor had ruled since 1848 but would be dead within two years.

The Romanovs had even more pressing dynastic problems than the Habsburgs with their sole male heir, Nikolaevich, succumbing to his final haemorrhage dying less than eight weeks short of his tenth birthday. Needless to say, this family tragedy devastated his father, although the tsar took some comfort from a visit by his royal cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II, who attended the boy's funeral. Nicholas would be distracted from affairs of state in the Russian court for many months, and the kaiser himself seemed to experience something of an epiphany about the value of human life.

One reason for Wilhelm's upbeat mood change was that during the short visit, the magician Grigori Rasputin regenerated his withered arm. Having outstayed his welcome in the Russian capital, the Mad Monk decided to return with the delighted kaiser back to Berlin. After all, his mission in Saint Petersburg was over because Nikolaevich had died while he was in the loving arms of the Tsarina.

Meanwhile, back in Sarajevo, a Serbian-formed anarchist group known as the Black Hand Gang had decided the timing and circumstance was against an assassination attempt on Franz Ferdinand. Public support for the tsarevich even in a nation as discontent with their royals as the Russian Empire convinced them that it may well make a martyr rather than a show of force.

Nevertheless, the archduke correctly sensed that the city was highly agitated and war with Serbia was imminent.  Even with military preparations and diplomatic urgency, the Austrian-Serbian War would not be long in coming. Rather than the spontaneous outbreak of a European war that many had feared, the conflict widened and spread to the south and into the Balkans. Emperor Franz, who had mandated the German language in the Armed Forces to suppress Czech nationalism, used multi-ethnic tension as a weapon, gaining covert support from the Ottoman Empire to stir up trouble in the Islamic segment of the Serbian population. It was a heart-breaking, brutal decision that drove Franz Ferdinand and Sophie to despair.

This approach back-fired for another reason: the Kingdom of Italy had been in two very recent wars with the Ottomans, first taking Libya and making it an Italian colony and then secondly in the Baltic supporting people there who wanted independence and/or revenge on the Ottoman Empire. Italy was drawn into the conflict on the side of the Habsburgs and the Ottomans on the side of Serbia, resolving some of the religious tension out of necessity largely due to the old emperor stirring it up. This alignment kept the Russian Empire neutral, which was certainly a sensible move for the Romanovs given the country's instability.

However, it created other problems for France, Great Britain, and Germany. Germany had a tacit agreement with the Ottomans and with Austria, so Wilhelm had a fateful choice: either to stay neutral or fight one of its planned allies. War was hardly in their interest at all. German desires in the west had been secured by their victory in the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870's that expanded their western flank, so there was nothing further to gain by attacking France, Great Britain, and Belgium. Their  empire's interest was always a big land grab in the east, but Russia had remained neutral. Based on advice from Rasputin, Wilhelm ultimately sold his fleet to the Ottoman Empire, Japan, and other interested international friends like Argentina to stress the British navy and concentrated on building his most efficient army, deploying the bulk to Africa to secure the German Empire there.

Also during this expansionist period, Great Britain had annexed Kuwait, which was at this time an exporter of pearls because no oil had been drilled there yet, and had sought oil concessions from the Ottoman Empire to develop oil fields in Kurdistan, i.e. "Mesopotamia," based on ancient oil seeps still in use in the region. The British plan, partly sponsored by the young Winston Churchill, was to develop Kurdish oil resources and ship it down the river or by pipeline to Kuwait, where it would be the supply source for the Royal Navy Indian Ocean fleet. In 1914, the Royal Navy was the world's largest with enough ships to secure separately the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans in order to protect the sea routes across the world empire back to the home island.

As Germany turned to strengthening their position in Africa, it left Great Britain in the position that they should be helping the Ottomans against Italy and Austria-Hungary as they formerly did during the Crimean War as a bulwark that could cut off Germany from its colonies in an emergency. This military effort dragged a reluctant France into the war with them. The Mitteleuropa of Imperial Germany then sat in the middle, neutral, happily selling arms and munitions to anyone who wished to buy.

By the time Emperor Franz died in 1916, both Austria-Hungary and the Kingdom of Italy were bankrupt. The bloody fighting through the mountains of the Balkans like the Carpathian Alps has killed the "flower of their youth" because advancing against a machine gun holding a mountain pass was in effect a human wave attack that kept going until it overwhelmed the machine gunners defending the pass at terrible cost. Serbia had been beaten down, slowly ground under, but the price in blood and treasure was immense. Out of this crisis would emerge the young resistance leader Josip Broz Tito, son of a Croat father and Slovene mother.

Tsarist Russia had earned a much-needed breathing spell by staying out of the fight like Imperial Germany. This allowed the Romanovs to regroup, letting them finish restructuring the army based on their losses in the 1905 Japanese war. There was enough food for even the poorest peasant since there was no massive enlistment to fight Germany and Austria-Hungary, so farm labor was available and food prices strong selling to the war-torn Balkans, eliminating the main source of revolutionary desires. The Tsar concentrated on conceiving a male heir with his wife in the hope of another son being born, hopefully without the hemophilia. That child would emerge with more than a passing resemblance to Rasputin. 

Meanwhile, Vladimir Lenin cursed his ill-luck kicking around Switzerland, finally deciding to seek a sponsor for a fateful trip to meet the young man Tito.

Author's Note:

In reality, the Tsarevich survived until the executions in Yekaterinburg.

Provine's Addendum:

Flush with cash, Germany sponsored the rebuilding of the Balkans. The move was popular, but cynics pointed out that it was clearly a move of propaganda and colonialism. Emperor Franz Ferdinand realized his dream of bringing together a multi-ethnic empire by improved rail and roads, though he would soon be considered a puppet of the Kaiser. As the glory days of the economic boom faded, the Balkans would again become a hotbed of problems, and international efforts routinely went out to stamp out calls of collectivism and communism. Many experts feared whether the next great war would be something like the Seven Years War with action both on the European continent as well as the growing colonies abroad or a mass-uprising of workers across the world.

Weird USA from a Simpsons Comic

A bit ago, Frank Hart posted design based on gap80's clipping from a The Simpsons comic with a weird map of the USA. The Alternate Historian picked it up on Twitter, too.

It could just be a hastily-drawn image to highlight the joke of "blue, Billy Graham-approved, family values states" the Flanderses planned to visit, or it could be an example of a wildly different timeline. Several people pointed out the loss of New England, the strange gains of southern Ontario and Quebec (not to mention Chihuahua), expansive Texas, and the jumble of other state lines including the Upper Peninsula being part of Wisconsin rather than Michigan. Is there one POD that could've caused all this? After some thought, I suggest:

September 6, 1664 - Second Anglo-Dutch War Begins with Defense at New Amsterdam

After success in the 1652-1654 war between its maritime rival, many in England sought to bait the Netherlands into a second war with more gains than simply setting back the House of Orange. English Colonel Richard Nicolls sailed with orders from Charles II granting lands between the Delaware and Connecticut Rivers, which were already populated by Dutch settlements, who had already demonstrated their authority in the region by seizing control of New Sweden to the south in 1655. Nicolls offered generous terms for surrender, which many of the Dutch burghers of the colony thought they should take. Peter Stuyvesant, the governor famed for his daring in battle as much as he was his strict rule, saw that the colonists were unwilling to fight when they could continue to prosper as English citizens, so he forced a battle by sending his son with a covert team to attack the warships at night. Several small boats were set aflame and send downriver into the sides of warships. Although the damage was minimal, Nicholls and the English were enraged, and it became clear that they would wreak vengeance on the colony. The Dutch were in no position but to defend themselves, which they did against an ongoing English three-day barrage.

The Dutch had limited gunpowder in their reserves to fight back, but the English were far from home, and the few settlers in Connecticut had little to offer in reinforcements. The two harassed one another until Nicolls finally had to retreat empty-handed. Europe was outraged, and the Second Anglo-Dutch War continued until a Dutch victory in 1667. The Treaty of Breda secured New Amsterdam as a Dutch holding for the time, though it would eventually fall in the 18th century with English settlement outpacing Dutch numbers in the region. Colonial skirmishes threatened to spark a new Anglo-Dutch War, which Dutch governors feared would devastate their economy that had already been weakened as London outpaced them. New Netherland was sold and reorganized into a large colonial unit along with Maryland from the Potomac River to the Hudson River.

Settlers continued to push westward into Native territory in the Ohio Valley and upriver of the new New York colony in Pennsylvania. Parliament attempted to prevent destabilization by preventing settlement by colonists, an issue that would be listed among others such as self-governance and taxation as revolution began in the 1770s. New York's diversity proved instrumental in the American Revolution, contributing troops and materiel to independence. Efforts were made to invade Canada, though Montreal proved impossible to hold without a suitable naval force in the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes. The region remained conflicted for another generation until invasion north of Lake Champlain in War of 1812 secured Montreal and Quebec, trapping British forces westward instead of trying to invade from Detroit with the British still able to supply by the river. Settlers panicked, many British fleeing en masse past American lines, and Tecumseh led his confederation with making a treaty with the Americans.

Success in the north prompted much stronger British response in the south. Blockades locked up the Gulf Coast and around the Florida Peninsula as far north as the Satilla River in Georgia, cutting off American supplies and frustrating trading partners among the Cherokee and Muscogee Creek. British agents were quick to step into the role of supplying the tribes, spreading the war and prompting American settlers to flee as British ones had done in Upper Canada. The war dragged on into 1816 with much of the South in flames and America's celebrated General Andrew Jackson killed in a hit-and-run raid along the Mississippi from British-held New Orleans.

With British naval strikes continuing along the East Coast and Atlantic trade disrupted, New England states became infuriated with the American war hawks refusing to give up the "right by conquest" to lands in Canada. The election of 1816 proved the final straw, and Massachusetts led the secession of its eastern territory along with New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Western Massachusetts responded by seceding and joining with Connecticut to remain in the United States. There was no real end to the war in sight until Bostonians offered to broker peace, leading to negotiations that secured the Federal States' independence along with a new northern border set at the 49th Parallel to defend British native allies and settlers who depended on the fur trade.

Americans celebrated the gains of Quebec and Canada, which would both become states in years to come. Led by Tecumseh, peace was also made among the natives in the South, which was facilitated further by new states. Southern Georgia was split from Savannah into its own state, Apalachee, and the Mississippi territory was separated into regions that would become four states: Cherokee south of Tennessee, Choctaw in the northeast, Alabama in the southeast, and Mississippi in the west. Like the South, the Ohio Valley also had reorganization with Ohio going westward to the Mississippi and a much wider range of protected Shawnee land joined to Kentucky.

Some Americans called for "Indian removal" to free up land in the South for white settlement, but their opinions were drowned out by men such as Davy Crockett, who would be a representative and senator from Tennessee for decades. Instead, settlers looked westward, advancing the opportunities for statehood in territories west of Missouri. American encroachment across the Red River and the Sabine River into Mexican Tejas prompted the Mexican-American War. The war would end with American purchase of the southwest, including California, Nevada, Great Salt Lake, Arizona, Chihuahua, and Texas. This would be the final continental expansion for the United States, giving it is familiar 43-state shape for centuries to come.

--

In reality, Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam peacefully.

Guest Post: Jimmy Carter's Provocative Playboy Interview

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History, co-authored with Robbie Taylor.

24 September, 1976 - Democratic presidential nominee Jimmy Carter alienated conservative Christians by unwisely revealing his lascivious proclivities in an interview with Robert Scheer for the November issue of Playboy magazine.

Despite being a devout Southern Baptist, Carter went even further in hopes of humanizing his gentle persona, also mentioning that he did not mind if people uttered the word "f*ck." This led to a media feeding frenzy, and critics lamented the erosion of boundary between politicians and their private intimate lives. Had incumbent Gerry Ford seized the Republican nomination rather than narrowly losing it to Californian Governor Ronald Reagan, these misstatements might well have encouraged swing voters to view the mild-mannered president more favorably as a man of the people. Equally, Carter might have been less strikingly self-reflective had he been running against Ford. As it was, the president's seminarian son, Mike, commented, "Jimmy Carter wears his religion on his sleeve, but Gerry Ford wears it in his heart."

Of course, Carter was no Playboy; he was a single-term governor of Georgia, a relatively small and backwater state. With a thoroughly underwhelming physical presence, he possessed an unusually meek, entirely unremarkable if accented voice enhanced by his ever-present, cloying earnestness. During the summer, he had given a wide-ranging series of interviews with the political purpose of appealing to his many different classes of voters, some of them from constituencies traditionally opposed to one another. Whereas his conservative opponent Ronald Reagan was a known quantity as a former actor and gifted speaker who had served two terms as Governor of California. Nevertheless, DNC patriarch, the House Speaker Tip O'Neil had warned Reagan he was now in the "big leagues," a message that Carter would have greatly benefitted from hearing rather than trying to build himself up as a good ol' boy to rival Reagan's cowboy.

Reagan stepped up to the challenge of the national political stage, deftly subduing the loquacious Carter during the presidential debate with the statesman-like, masterful put-down, "There you go again." Meanwhile, Carter's campaign was torpedoed by this publication of the 8,000-word interview, which hit the news stands a couple of weeks before the election. His running mate, Senator Walter Mondale, expressed hope that this whole incident would prove quite helpful. His 78-year-old mother said, "In a way I was surprised but it didn't shock me. Do you know, I'm so broad-minded, and he just gave an honest answer." Conversely, Vice President Rockefeller told an audience in Cleveland, "I never thought I'd see the day when Christ's teachings were discussed in Playboy, and I'm a Baptist, ladies and gentlemen!"

The interview would have an asymmetric impact upon voting patterns. Perhaps the most accurate insight was given by the chairman of the Democratic party in Georgia, who cut through the well-disguised embarrassment of most Democratic politicians and said, "The general reaction? Bad. Bad, bad. I've been everywhere today and the reaction is uniformly negative." With the Republican Southern Strategy unexpectedly back on track, Reagan managed to win the electoral college even though he won less states and a lower share of the popular vote. This victory followed his earlier squeaker in which he had narrowly beaten Ford for the Republican nomination by promising a return to integrity that those tainted by the Nixon Administration were unable to give. The truth was that Ford was harshly judged for pardoning Nixon and making a few physical stumbles, but he was well regarded by his colleagues in Congress and was a member of the Select Committee which created NASA. Reagan was unable to adequately deliver on those promises and was defeated after one term in office. Running for president himself four years later, and seeking to build an even broader coalition, the Rev. Jesse Jackson famously said that Reagan had won in 1976 by a "margin of despair."

Author's Note:

In reality the "f*ck" was in a separate interview so in this ATL we imagine Carter takes even more risks. Gerald Ford did win the 1976 Republican presidential nomination narrowly over Ronald Reagan, who would later be elected in 1980.

Provine's Addendum:

Reagan would go down in American history as a loud but largely ineffectual president. His efforts to combat unions proved an overreach, especially in a time when many American families were struggling where factories were closing to create the "Rust Belt." His greatest economic impact was the policy to encourage expanded domestic oil to combat another energy crisis, though the delay on implementing drilling was not enough to save his re-election. The resulting "oil glut" made for low prices for transportation that helped grease the gears of globalization as manufactures were increasingly brought from East Asia. American workforces needed to pivot, which was a main driver of Walter Mondale's administration investing in infrastructure and education in what was called the "New New Deal." American students surged ahead on international STEM testing and technology as the Digital Age dawned. Mondale would of course be critiqued as weak on defense, "allowing" the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, though later commentators would suggest that the fatigue of the war led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which would finally bring Germany to reunify in 1994.