|The Mexican-American War|
|The War of Secession|
|The Spanish-Americas War|
|The Great War|
|The Texan-American War|
|The World War|
|The Cold War|
|Post-Apocalypse Brush Wars|
Historical Map Section (Viva California) warning: large files found here.
An Alternate History based upon the premise that the North terribly mishandled the war, the leaders that would save the war here dying before or during the early stages of the war. The war with Mexico was lost and Manifest Destiny was thus changed.
The Mexican American War
In 1844, Zachary Taylor, a general of the American armies crossed the Rio Grande, and was surrounded by Mexican soldiers who outnumbered his own battalion 4 to 1. The slaughter was incredible, and Taylor was executed after attempting a surrender.
This crippling loss caused the American war machine to reel, leading to the loss of the Mexican-American war and the nobles of California break free of Mexico. Among other notable losses is the battle of Monterrey, in which Ulysses S. Grant, a Captain of the US Army was killed.
Sam Houston refused to join the United States of America, seeing the atrocities against Mexican citizens and accepting the promises of Presidente Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga of recognition if Tejas would remain an independent nation. Houston accepted the terms and Texas became a free country. Because the USA cannot expand further to the Southwest, they expand to the North, against Canada, and into the Caribbean.
The USA first moves against British Colombia in 1848, taking control of the whole up to Russian Alyeska, thus expanding the nation from sea to sea.
The Southern States saw this as a move by the North to limit the lands they can occupy as additional slave states, and in late 1860 the South revolts against the north, and the War of Secession begins.
The War of Secession
After the first Battle of Bull Run, Colonel William T. Sherman was one of few Union troops to distinguish themselves in the battle. Nonetheless he asked to be stripped of an independent command, which President Lincoln reluctantly granted. Sherman entered a depression following this time, and while living in Louisville as an adjunct officer, he suffered a nervous breakdown, during which he committed suicide.
While General H.W. Halleck tried gallantly to guide the Union Army in the war, Lincoln cast about to find a more driven general. It soon became evident to Abraham Lincoln that the military leadership of the North had been squandered and that Jefferson Davies could bring this war to a draw.
In what is considered the final turning point of the war, the North was brutally defeated in the Battle of Gettysburg. While the North was able to make advances and in fact gained nearly all the territory of Virigina, the peace movement in the North gained strength, and in 1864, his popularity waning under the significant losses, Lincoln was defeated by George B. McClellan in a narrow margin.
When offered a treaty, McClellan grudgingly signed away the southern states in 1866, saying "They will not last long, these Southern States. They will be reviled of the international world and shunned."
The treaty was not signed quickly enough to save Richmond, which was sacked in 1863 and the Southern Capitol moved to Atlanta, deep in the heartland of the South. Retaliation against Washington, DC prompted the USA to consider moving their headquarters to Philadelphia, but this was discarded at the end of the war.
West Virginia took most of what had been Northern and Central Virginia. The new border ran along the northern borders of the following counties: Surry, Prince George, Dinwiddie, Amelia, Prince Edward, Appomattox, Campbell, Pittsylvania, Roanoke, Patrick. All other land south of the Ohio was lost to the Union. All lands to the west of the Mississippi had fallen to the Union Armies, and thus the Confederate States of America were a small lump on the underside of the United States of America.
The Great War (1914-1920)
The brooding powder keg of the Balkans blew wide in 1914, engulfing the world in warfare. The United States of America was quick to join the side of Germany against the hated British Empire. The Confederate States sided with France and Great Britain against the USA hoping to avenge themselves of the losses forced on them in the Civil War.
Texas remained unaligned, but declared war against the USM and later the USA as they moved into Louisiana and Sequoia in the end of 1916.
The war dragged on with the introduction of trench warfare, and the British Alliance was gradually worn down. The USA made massive gains to the north, occupying the entire Canadian Kingdom. Quebec rebelled against the British when word of the American invasion came, and established the Republic of New France, which the USA was fast to support.
With the blockade of Britain, the English were quickly subdued, ceding the Kingdom of Canada. The Yanks redeployed after securing this newly acquired territory, although this was to prove later a difficult statement, as most of the non-French Canadians were decidedly united with Britain and did not welcome their Yankee invaders in the slightest.
While the USA lost some territory to the CSA and Texas, its gains to the north compensated greatly, giving it effective control of the entire continent north of the 35th parallel, with a strong ally in its midst. Texas gained the ire of the USA which would later come against them. Texas had profited from the civil unrest in nearby Mexico to aggrandize its lands as well. Mexico lost a great deal of its northern lands, but the Russian supported People’s Republic of Mexico would later bring its own power to bear. The CSA watched as the USA exercised great military might with their incredible industrial base and CSA politicians were quick to sue for peace, establishing the Virginian and Kentuckyan border in 1918.
This had repercussions against their British and French allies, who were still embroiled in the battles of the Great War in continental Europe, and hurt the diplomatic standing of the CSA in their eyes. They felt that it was the responsibility of the CSA to keep Yankee forces pre-occupied so they could not be redeployed in Europe.
With the Yankee arrival in support of Kaiser Wilhelm II the war came to a quick and decisive end against the British, French, Confederates and their allies. Punitive damages were exacted of these powers, leading to a terrible downfall in their economies.
The Twenties and The Awful Recession
After the war the economies that had been so built continued forward. In the USA a prohibitionist movement began, but never really brought more than a minor percentage of the population not its sway. Some cities banned the consumption and sale of alcoholic beverages in their confines, most notable New York City; however this was short lived as most police forces realized the futility of their efforts.
The CSA, British and French were crippled by the reparations exacted by Germany and the USA, leading to rampant inflation and horrible unemployment. Businesses failed, and the CSA’s agricultural abilities were crippled. In late 1929 the Roaring Twenties which looked poised to go forward into the Thrilling Thirties collapsed in the Awful Recession as one by one the Stock Markets of the world collapsed. Pravda in Russia declared it proof of the erroneous practice of Capitalism and proof that Communism was the only way. These claims and a Russian backed Socialist Party brought revolution to Mexico, ousting the president and establishing the People’s Republic of Mexico.
The USA, on the other hand, was not as terribly affected, as in March, 1931 the Texan Republic launched an invasion of Kansas and Missouri. The USA turned its automobile production plants to the war effort, and despite the crippling recession, the war was a shot in the arm. The USA economy began booming as the war dragged on.
Within a matter of 5 years the USA had invaded and subjugated Texas, increasing the land area of the USA, effectively encapsulating the CSA. The government of the CSA looked on this change with concern, seeing a powerful enemy who was not crippled by the recession around them, and had spent years developing, increasing and perfecting military maneuvers.
Although the South had rejected slavery under international pressure prior to the turn of the century, the black population was still poorly treated, second class citizens relegated to communities separated from the white populations, similar to the Boers in South Africa with Apartheid.
The World War
Germany sat contented in its borders, Wilhelm III a happy ruler of the lands that his father had conquered, but France and Britain were not happy with the Armistice of the Saarland. First Britain and then France began building their armies larger than the proscribed 100,000 men.
The CSA chaffed against the reparations that were to be repaid to the USA, and stopped their payments. Their hatred and anger turned against the Blacks, who they quickly forced from their cities and began concentrating them, placing them on agricultural communes and forcing them to produce the food for their own survival.
Hearing of the acts of the ‘Rebs’ the Yankee Armies soon prepared for invasion, and in 1939, the USA invaded the CSA. Within four years it was subjected to the USA, and the USA spanned nearly the entire North American continent, a bellicose war-mongering nation.
After World War
California remained free from the USA in much the same vein as New France remained free; an ally against a common foe. The Colorado River as it was originally named is now called El Rio de Sangre, because many bloody battles have been waged over the shores.
The natural beauty of the Grand Canyon has been marred by the mortar fire, but the other canyons along the flow of this majestic river have not been sunk under waters of a dam, althhough there are plans in review to do so between California and the USA.
With the "Re-unificiation" of the CSA and USA large numbers of African-Americans emigrated to the USA, where they weren't received well, but they were received better than among the Southerners. Many of them opted to relocate to Jamaica and other countries, rather than face the Yankees and the Southerners.
From the end of the Great War, the USA has been dealing with Canadian insurrectionists who were trying to revolt against the occupational government. Most of the extreme offenders involved were relocated to detainment camps in the Yukon, Alaska, and Baffin Island.
Texas only grudgingly joined the USA, but within 10 years were happy citizens for the most part. In the south, in the Confederacy, the lands were held under Military Reconstruction govenrments, in some areas, to this present day. Many Southerners chafe against the US occupation, however in the large cities, and especially the coasts of North and South Carolina and Florida the citizens are very happy for the US Dollar and the tourists who spend it.
US Citizens are discouraged from moving into the CSA region for their safety. Citizens of African ancestry are discouraged especially from the area.
Even though the USA and Russia disagree on economic styles, they don't disagree on powerful rule of subjected minorities. The USA has in the last two decades begun doing as the Assyrians did, relocating groups of the conquered to different locations across the country.
Initial world reaction was poor. It came to later light that the Confederacy population was being relocated to equal or better locations, were supplied with jobs and or farms and minor assistance to begin their new lives. Their homes in the South were bulldozed and replaced, sometimes whole cities at once. In their place Texans and Canadians were relocated to new, quality homes.
This seems expensive to those outside the US, but it was decided that relocation is much less expensive than a war, and the defense budget was and is used in part for this purpose. This is more humane than Stalin's purges.
See Also: List of Nations (Viva California)