Timeline-191

Timeline-191 is a fan name given to a series of Harry Turtledove alternate history novels.

Great War

• The Great War Trilogy
• American Front (1998)
• Walk in Hell (1999)
• Breakthroughs (2000)

The Road to War

For the next thirty years, the Democratic Party dominated the politics of the United States. The Socialists eventually displaced the Republicans as the opposition party, and the GOP devolved into a small regional party of the Midwest. The United States economy and military ware reformed along Prussian lines: peacetime conscription and a naval buildup began, and resources such as coal, kerosene, and food products became subject to rationing. Large trusts held untrammeled power over the economy, with government encouragement, and labor rights largely ignored. The US eventually formally allied with the German Empire and joined the Quadruple Alliance.

Related Topics:
Midwest - Prussian - Coal - Kerosene - Food - Trusts - German Empire - Quadruple Alliance

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A racial caste system similar to apartheid had been instituted in the CS, where Negroes were defined as "residents" rather then citizens, and who could not vote or even move freely about the country. Under the weight of this oppression the socialist theories of Karl Marx had taken hold among southern Negroes. White politics, meanwhile, was dominated by the Whigs, a conservative, mostly upper-class party, opposed by the Radical Liberals, a small opposition party which was popular in the fringes of the Confederacy, such as in Louisiana, State of Sequoyah, Sonora, Chihuahua, and the state of Cuba.

Related Topics:
Apartheid - Karl Marx - Whigs - Louisiana - State of Sequoyah - Cuba

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Canada was largely unchanged, except for the Anglo-Quebecois rivalry being overshadowed by fear of the United States, and universal conscription for the armed forces.

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Overseas little seems changed, except that Japan, in addition to holding Chosen and Formosa (Korea and Taiwan, respectively), had also seized the Philippines from Spain during the Hispano-Japanese War (c. 1905). There was no Russo-Japanese War.

Related Topics:
Japan - Korea - Taiwan - Philippines - Spain - Russo-Japanese War

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Relations between the two American nations had been tense since the Second Mexican War of 1881–1882. The Confederates joined their traditional allies Britain and France alongside the Russian Empire in the Quadruple Entente. Incidents such as border raids and the Anglo-Confederate proposal for a Nicaragua Canal nearly brought the two alliances to war many times. But when the spark for war comes, it is not in America but in the distant Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Related Topics:
Russian Empire - Quadruple Entente - Nicaragua Canal - Austro-Hungarian Empire

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1914: Declaration and Invasion

The Empire's Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his family were killed by a terrorist bomb while touring the town of Sarajevo in June 1914. The Austrian government quickly learned that a Serb group was responsible, and accused the government of nearby Serbia of colluding with the terrorists. The Russian Tsar Nicholas II backed Serbia, and German Kaiser Wilhelm II backed Austria-Hungary, and the major powers of each system mobilized their militaries, effectively signifyng their intent to go to war. The Great War began in August 1914, initially pitting Britain, France, and Russia against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Related Topics:
Franz Ferdinand - Sarajevo - Serbia - Tsar - Nicholas II - Kaiser - Wilhelm II

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Across the Atlantic, Democratic President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the US military to mobilize in late July, following Germany's lead. In response Confederate President Woodrow Wilson ordered the Confederate military to do the same, and fighting soon broke out on their common border and on the high seas. The United States began the war in North America by officially declaring war in early August.President Wilson responded in kind, although he had hoped to avoid a war. Wilson's speech, given in a tightly-packed public square of Richmond, Virginia decorated with statues of southern war heroes George Washington and Albert Sidney Johnston, became particularly famous.

Related Topics:
Theodore Roosevelt - Woodrow Wilson - Richmond - Virginia - George Washington - Albert Sidney Johnston

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Hoping to emulate General Lee, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia launched a massive invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania in August, targeting the northern capital of Philadelphia. The ANV quickly overran the old capital of Washington, D.C. and pushed on through Maryland.

Related Topics:
Maryland - Pennsylvania - Washington, D.C.

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The US Army took a different approach, and ordered First Army under Lieutenant General George Custer and Second Army under Major General John Pershing to cross the Ohio River and invade Kentucky. Although Confederate resistance was high, especially from river gunboats modeled after the original Monitor, they succeeded in establishing a bridgehead on the southern bank. A US invasion of Sonora, intended to capture the Confederacy's sole Pacific port of Guaymas soon bogged down. A young army captain named Irving Morrell was wounded in this venture, and spent much of the next six months in Tucson, New Mexico Territory recuperating.

Related Topics:
John Pershing - Ohio River - Kentucky - ''Monitor'' - Pacific - Guaymas - Irving Morrell - Tucson, New Mexico Territory

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The US also launched attacks on the British dominion of Canada, specifically in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Perhaps the most successful maneuver during these early stages was the US Navy's capture of the British base at Pearl Harbor in the Sandwich Islands in a surprise attack.

Related Topics:
Canada - Manitoba - Ontario - Quebec - US Navy's - Pearl Harbor - Sandwich Islands

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1915: Stalemate

Most of these offensives soon stalled, however; the US armies found it difficult to push south, and the ANV was slowed by the 1914–15 winter and the invasion of Pennsylvania ground to a halt at the Susquehanna River, only a few dozen miles from Philadelphia. From that high-water mark, US forces slowly pushed them back into Maryland.

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Although the US forces easily conquered the southern bank of the St. Lawrence River, crossing it proved another matter. The geography of the Niagara Peninsula soon bottlenecked the invading army, and though Winnipeg, Manitoba, a major rail junction, lay relatively close to the US border, the War Department allocated too few troops to capture it.

Related Topics:
St. Lawrence River - Niagara Peninsula - War Department

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Trench warfare became ubiquitous as each side dug in for protection from machine-gun fire. Troops huddled in these trenches as heavy artillery in their rear pounded the enemy lines night and day. They dreaded the order of "Over the top!" which meant that they would have to leave the safety of their lines to charge into No Man's Land, in the hope of capturing the enemy trenches on the other side. Far from the quick, glorious conquest that each side had imagined, the Great War became a long, bloody stalemate.

Related Topics:
Machine-gun - No Man's Land

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Early in 1915, another front was opened when the Mormons of Utah seceded from the US and declared themselves the independent nation of Deseret. Mormon relations with the rest of the country had been hostile since the Utah War of the 1850s and the brief uprising during the Second Mexican War, and they believed that the distracted US government would be unable to subdue them. They were wrong; Utah sat on one of the major transcontinental rail lines, and President Roosevelt stated that the US would not tolerate unlawful rebellion. The Mormon rebellion raged until mid-1916, when it was finally crushed and Salt Lake City captured.

Related Topics:
Deseret - Utah War - Salt Lake City

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In the autumn of 1915, with the armies of the Confederacy locked in mortal combat with those of the USA along the border regions, the CSA's blacks rose up in revolt. Bitter over their treatment by the whites, and fueled by rhetoric of Marxism and the teachings of Abraham Lincoln, the blacks declared Red revolution in several areas across the CSA and established "socialist republics", while massacring whites and seeking justice against their former white masters and overlords, although most trials were shams, and the executions brutal. These rebellions were gradually crushed by 1916, although white justice mellowed out a bit as thoughts were preoccupied with winning the war. Ironically, this revolt actually made white people start to believe in the military potential of blacks.

Related Topics:
Marxism - Abraham Lincoln

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1916: Slaughter

Taking advantage of the Confederacy's plight, the US First Army finished slogging through western Kentucky and marched into western Tennessee, while the CS Army of Northern Virginia was pushed south toward Washington. In mid-spring of 1916, a new armored technical advance called the "barrel" (called a tank by the British) was introduced to combat for the first time by US forces operating in the Roanoke Valley. In Tennessee, General Custer transformed his tactics for cavalry into a doctrine for the new barrels, but the War Department would hear none of it. When Custer's summer offensive opened that summer, tens of thousands of US soldiers were lost attacking Confederate lines, and the new barrels broke down in the hilly terrain, not being used the way Custer thought they should be.

Related Topics:
Tank - Roanoke Valley - Cavalry

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The lack of British and Empire troops in Canada meant that the USA, while initially held back by the Canadians, would slowly advance toward their triple objectives of Quebec City, Toronto, and Winnipeg. Largely thanks to the efforts of Irving Morrell, US forces pushed up to Banff in the Canadian Rockies and cut the Pacific coast off from the rest of the country. At sea, the great Battle of the Three Navies between the USA one one side, and UK and Japan on the other, prevented the Entente from recapturing the Sandwich Islands. With the Central Pacific in US hands, a US Navy flotilla made its way south toward the Cape of South America and the Atlantic on the other side, with the intent of cutting off Argentine grain and beef shipments to the UK.

Related Topics:
Banff - Canadian Rockies - South America - Argentine

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On the Maryland front, the state was cleared of Confederate soldiers save for those holding Washington, the nominal US capital. In Tennessee that autumn, more attacks toward Nashville gained the USA nothing but a possible Democratic loss at the polls, with the possiblity that a Socialist President would seek peace with the CSA and throw away all that had been gained with blood. Save for a local attack on the Roanoke Front that pushed the USA out of western Virginia, the Confederates stayed on the defensive that autumn and attempted to drain the USA dry, hoping to sicken the US population of war.

Related Topics:
Tennessee - Nashville

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Nevertheless, for all the wishes of the Socialist Party, and those of the Confederates, Theodore Roosevelt was re-elected. In Richmond, the hopes of President Gabriel Semmes and his Cabinet were dashed. The USA had another four years to crush the CSA, and the Confederates were already running out of white men to fight. A bill was passed authorizing the training and arming of bodies of Negro troops who would serve in the lines, with civil rights to be given after the war.

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In Europe, the war seems little changed from our world, with the exception of Verdun's capture by the Germans, and an apparantly heavier use of African infantry by the French Army.

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1917: Breakthroughs

General Custer secretly developed a scheme to quickly end the war in the USA's favor, using a massed-barrel (tank) formation that was forbidden by War Department staffers. Disguising his true intentions to all but Lieutenant-Colonel Morrell and his own adjutant, Major Abner Dowling, and lying about it to the president, Custer launched his Barrel Roll Offensive on Remembrance Day—April 22, 1917—and quickly broke through the Confederate trench lines north of the Tennessee capital. The Southerners withdrew to a line centered on Nashville, where Custer hit them again three weeks later by outflanking the city using a plan concocted by Morrell. Nashville fell, despite the best efforts of the newly formed CS colored regiments to stave off Custer's barrels, and the state capitol became First Army headquarters. From there, in July, Custer attacked in the direction of Murfreesboro, and near Nolensville received a Confederate request for a local armistice. President Roosevelt assented, and peace on the North American front came to Tennessee a week before the rest of the US-CS frontline. At the same time, mutinies in the French Army led to that country's exit from the war, while Russia collapsed into revolution and anarchy.

Related Topics:
Remembrance Day - April 22 - Murfreesboro - Nolensville - Russia

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On the same day that the Barrel Roll Offensive began in Tennessee, the US Army in northern Virginia attacked southward toward Manassas at the same time as US troops entered occupied Washington DC. The de jure US capital was recaptured after several days of intense street fighting, which leveled most of the city and its famous landmarks. In northern Virginia, US attack after US attack forced the CS Army of Northern Virginia to retreat south. In battles at Round Hill, Centreville, and Bull Run creek, rear-guard actions led by a few battered batteries of the First Richmond Howitzers prevented the complete destruction of Robert E. Lee's fabled army, but it was obvious that the war was on the verge of being lost—a notion that did not bode well with several Confederate soldiers, who reckoned that the war was as good as won only months before.

Related Topics:
Barrel Roll Offensive - Manassas - Round Hill - Centreville - Bull Run

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In Canada, Custer's methods were used to break through the Anglo-Canadian lines south of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the provincial capital was taken in late May. The same strategy was used by US forces battling their way into Toronto, Ontario, the fall of which precipitated a British Empire request for a cease-fire with the USA on all land fronts. The armistice was granted in early June, and, with US-German naval operations cutting off Great Britain from its Argentine and Australasian food suppliers, the United Kingdom sued for peace later that summer—the last opponent of the Quadruple Alliance still in the war.

Related Topics:
Winnipeg, Manitoba - Toronto, Ontario

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The Confederate States of America started sending peace feelers to Philadelphia as early as the fall of Nashville, but Theodore Roosevelt refused to grant a cease-fire until he was certain that the CSA was severely hammered elsewhere. The last hammers on the Confederate Army came in late July, when fighting reached the town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, which was only about fifty miles from the Confederate States capital. With a cease-fire already in effect in Tennessee, Sequoyah overrun, and fighting out west in Texas and Arkansas sputtering down, the CSA agreed to a general armistice on land and at sea. For the first time since August 1914, the guns fell silent in North America.

Related Topics:
Fredericksburg, Virginia - Texas - Arkansas

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At sea, however, the submarine CSS Bonefish, led by a Confederate Navy man named Roger Kimball, carried out a sneak attack on the USS Ericsson even though he was fully aware of the end of the war. For a long time after the war, both North and South were led to believe that the ship's destruction was a work of the Royal Navy, as the war between the USA and the British Empire at sea had not yet ended.

Related Topics:
Submarine - Royal Navy

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