Sowing Dragon's Teeth, an alternate WW2
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| Chiang Kai-shek |
Oct 10, 1928: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek named director of the State Council
Exactly twenty-four years after the Dogger Bank Incident brought Great Britain into the Russo-Japanese War, the beginnings of a functional Chinese state threatened the status quo in the Far East.
Because the fall of the Tsar had created an Anglo-Japanese hegemony, an unlikely alliance of two sea-faring island nations that permitted the Royal Navy to redeploy its resources elsewhere safe in the knowledge that British Colonial possessions were unthreatened. Part of that redeployment of armed forces would eventually be used to defend the home islands from the rise of nationalism in Europe. And of course this turn of events was somewhat iconic, given the emergence of a nationalist strongman in China - "Generalissimo" Chiang Kai-shek. A discipline of Dr Sun Yat-sen, he saw China as the natural regional great power, seeing long-term opportunity by stepping into the vacuum left by the Tsar.
Although they failed to grasp that China was a civilization rather than a nation, the imperial governments in London and Tokyo did realize that they had a serious problem on their hands. The tried and tested solution was of course sowing disunity inside China. By process of elimination, a review of possible options was short-listed down to just feasible one - clandestine support for the opposition. This was funnelled through a minor military official called Mao Zedong, a dynamic individual who eventually emerged as the most influential leader of the Communist Party of China.
But despite this development, Chiang launched the so-called Republican Era, pressing ahead with a rebuilding programme based upon the principles of military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional rule. Before too long, it became apparent that in Peking the dragon seeds of World War Two were being sown by the "Red General".
In reality, the Dogger Bank incident was diplomatically defused. This event occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, when the Russian Baltic Fleet mistook some British trawlers at Dogger Bank for an Imperial Japanese Navy force and fired on them. Russian warships also fired on each other in the chaos of the melée. Three British fishermen died and a number were wounded. One sailor and a priest aboard a Russian cruiser caught in the crossfire were also killed. The incident almost led to war between Britain and Russia.
May Day
Bonnie & Clyde Join Battle of Toledo
1934
In a move that in some ways continued their murderous lives of crime and in others returned the air of Robin Hood with which they had surrounded themselves, notorious gangsters Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker joined the strike at the Auto-Lite factory in Toledo, Ohio.
Their encouragement of heavy weaponry and fearlessness turned what was largely a riot into an unstoppable force that would firmly establish a federation of unions as the major political force in the United States. Bonnie and Clyde reportedly first met at a mutual friend's house in the slum of West Dallas in 1930. Bonnie, nineteen at the time, was staying with her friend who had broken an arm, making hot chocolate when twenty-year-old Clyde dropped by. He was the fifth child in a family of nine that had come to Dallas after their farm failed. Clyde routinely had minor altercations with the law, first being questioned over failing to return a rental car and stealing turkeys, but he seemed to pursue a life of crime only for fun, stealing and robbing even while holding legitimate jobs. The two instantly fell in love, despite Bonnie having an estranged husband, Roy Thornton, who himself was often arrested. Four months after their meeting, Clyde was sentenced to a stint at Eastham Prison Farm. There, he was sexually assaulted and emotionally hardened by the prison system, returning home as a bitter criminal with a lethal chip on his shoulder. His sisters noticed the dark change in him, and fellow gang member Ralph Fults called him "a rattlesnake". Historians would argue that Clyde's resulting crime spree would be an act of vengeance on a system that had abused him so deeply.
When Boyd issued warrants for Clyde as well as Bonnie, the reality of their negative press struck her. She begged Clyde to reconsider his increasing madness and instead use his rage against the corrupt system for good. Finally, instead of visiting Methvin's parents outside of Shreveport, LA, Bonnie and Clyde broke with the rest of their gang and headed toward another item in the papers: the ongoing strike at the Auto-Lite plant in Ohio, where they hoped to do some good or at least hide out among the crowds. The Great Depression had gutted Toledo with massive layoffs and increasing frustration by workers as banks collapsed and factories closed. When the Auto-Lite management refused to sign the contract they had promised recognizing Federal Labor Union 18384 and a 5 percent wage increase after a five-day strike in February, a much larger strike began in April. Picketers from the American Workers Party joined in, and the strikers effectively laid siege to the factory. Auto-Lite began bringing in strikebreakers, which only prompted the union to fight harder. An article by Professor Jeff ProvineOn May 23, police arrested five strike-leaders, and a deputy strike an elderly man, which set off the temper of the 10,000-strong crowd to full riot. Rocks were thrown and fire hoses attempting to cool the riot were captured and turned on police. Gunfire soon began as police tried to take out the legs of the rioters, and Clyde Darrow's ears perked at the familiar sound. Arriving on the scene in a stolen Ford V8, he collected his favored Browning Automatic Rifle and joined the fight. Handing out extra weapons from his arsenal to men he had never met, Clyde led the charge that allowed the rioters to break into the factory and seize control. Young National Guardsmen arrived early the next morning, and the use of tear gas quickly escalated to bayonets and then raw gunfire, but the strike could not be broken. Much of the crowd fled the battlefield, spreading the word of Clyde's unexpected and heroic appearance. Bonnie, who had excelled in writing in school, wrote her famed poem "Take a Stand" and soon fell in with union leadership. The two had swung public opinion from being cold-blooded killers back to roguish thieves standing against corruption. After the successful Battle of Toledo, union power surged in the United States, dismissing FDR's plan of labor boards and instead creating the non-socialist American Labor Party that would sweep elections in 1936 and become the dominant of the three political parties in America for the next twenty-five years. In reality the gang did not turn north. Outlaws Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed near Methvin's parents' home by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer and a posse that unloaded 130 rounds from BARs, shotguns, pistols, and assorted other rifles into them. Meanwhile, the five-day "Battle of Toledo" raged with the rioters unable to take the factory until finally 1,350 National Guard with additional police and private security managed to calm the city by mass arrest and large-scale gassing. Agreements finally came underway as FDR intervened and Toledo settled its general strike, today still standing one of the strongest unionized cities in the country. A short reflection by Pietro Montevecchio
Our own work: we love it, we hate it. We are desperate when we lose our job, we’re tired by the job we do. We would like to change it, we fear the change. Yes, work is at the centre of our lives: we devote to it the greatest part of our time and surely the best part of our life, always in a sort of Augustinian wise ignorance concerning the final purpose of our working efforts.
Thus Man was not meant to live on holiday, but to co-operate with God in ceaselessly refining the Creation. The real difference between work before and after the Fall (Steinbeck’s ‘Grapes of Wrath’ is surely one of the best depictions of life on the West of the garden of Eden) is that in the Paradise Lost Man experimented the unity of his efforts and their results, under the reliable guide of a loving God. Eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil, man did no longer need any guide, because knowledge was in himself, but he paid the price of the fracture of unity. Nothing would have ever vouched for the rightness of his efforts, nor for the fulfillment of his desires. An article by Pietro Montevecchio Now I must confess that I have always considered God as Hegelian (leftist or rightist yet to be decided). Indeed, the history of the Fall finds its mirror in Hegel’s core idea that the whole history might be read as the history of the questioning ‘I’ which, once emerging, breaks the original unity. This ‘I’ experiences itself as distinct and apart from other beings, from customary rules. Natural world becomes an ‘object’ for it. This introduces into experience a set of ‘dualisms’ (between subject and object, man and nature, and particularly desire and duty) which are to be overcome through the dialectic sequences of alienations. Marx turned Hegel’s view of History as a processual movement in which division is subjected to reconciliation, into a secular (but always dialectic) historical movement toward the final emancipation of the workers. This emancipation lays no longer on the shoulders of the spiritual unity, but on a new ontological unity: the society without classes, a sort of historical new Eden. Obviously, this new polis requires a new citizen, the omnilateral human being (here, from many points of view, Marx holds Nietzsche’s hand), who pursues his own happiness through a secular friendship among equals, in the community appeared at the last turn of history, where means and ends are definitively reconciled. End of History? Let alone any judgement about the historical experience of Communism, we must stress the it has been Alexander Kojéve who, in his famous ‘Introduction to the Reading of Hegel’ (1969), has unveiled the gap in both Marx and Hegel’s systems: the lack of a convincing onthology of the individual human being. Reading Hegel through the lens of Heidegger, Kojéve underlines that Man’s being is conditioned by its radically temporal character, its understanding of its being in time, with finitude or death as its ultimate horizon. Man, unwillingly ‘thrown’ in the World, lacks any stable onthologic foundation. It is precisely because of this lack that man experiences (or, more properly is nothing other than) desire. And that’s the point: modern capitalism, far from ruining because of its intimate contradictions (Marx’s forecast) has proved to be the most suitable instrument to satisfy Man’s desires and wishes. Man’s struggle to overcome himself and nature through struggle and contestation has come to an end. Same destiny for the ceaseless rhythm of dialectic historical evolution. So end of History. Is it the end of work? Notwithstanding Rifkin, I’d say the question is a bit more complex, because the onthology of desire leaves the system open to the last alienation, that is the final split between the one who desires and the object desired. Work is the path that leads the former to the latter. But it’s a path which crosses an overshadowed, sinister wood. And, as a great novelist once wrote, “between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting”. Maybe we are still working because the original fracture has not been recomposed; the thesis and the antithesis have not found their synthesis yet. Hard to say if this is a hard destiny or not. St. Paul, herald of the ancient wisdom, while facing the heresy of escathon which was gaining ground in the Thessalonian community (an heresy according to which the history was suddenly coming to an end and everyone had to give up their work), wrote in KJV, II Thessalonian 2:2: “Let no man deceiue you by any meanes, for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sinne bee reuealed, the sonne of perdition”. The end of history was yet to come and the daily routine, the daily burden of worries, were to be considered the shelter against the coming of the Antichrist. If it’s true that “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (KJV, II Peter 3:10), otherwise the days of the Antichrist might be already among us, in this stately pleasure dome where the kings of free market encamp them still, in order to dominate even the source of our desires. Maybe what we have to wish is that there’s still a lot of work to do. The Eruption of Mount Rainier
2013
PROLOGUE: 6 Months Before Eruption
SEATTLE(AP)-- Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey announced last night that they have noticed a slight increase in seismic activity in the area around Mount Rainier...
An alternate history by Chris OakleyBBC World News -- “Civil defense officials in the American states of Washington, Oregon, and California met via teleconference this afternoon to discuss what measures could be taken to evacuate Seattle if Mount Rainier should erupt...” Multi-part article continues at Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8. Maryland Secedes from the Union
1861
In order to resolve the power-struggle between a pro-Confederate legislature and a pro-Union governor, Maryland's House of Delegates voted to secede from the Union.
But the fates chose otherwise. Because Lincoln himself was in dreadful ill health. Within weeks, he would die and his successor Hamlin would relocate the Union capital to Philadelphia. And it would soon become clear that it was Hamlin's own counter-productive decisions during Lincoln's final days that had directly led to the secession of Maryland. in authoring this post we have re-purposed content from Wikipedia, Alternate History 1 and Alternate History 2 web sites. Jadwiga's Betrothal
1385
Demonstrating the indisputable charm that had rightfully earned him the name "William the Courteous", the Duke of Austria gained the approval of the lords of lesser Poland to marry their eleven year old monarch, Jadwiga.
But of course there were still those members of the Court that strongly disagreed, in fact they had argued for a bolder move, a marriage to Jagiełło the Grand Duke of Lithuania [1]. There was an obvious attraction to such a Union that would create the largest state in Europe. And moreover, both States shared a common interest being hard pressed by both the Teutonic Knights and also the Mongols. However there were important differences too. Although Poland had turned to Rome in 966, the Lithuanian elite included Pagans, and their population was comprised of largely Slavic easterners of Orthodox persuasion. Even though it might not diminish Poland, surely such a union would dilute the homogeneity of its cultural identity. And so the pro-Austria camp won the day, but the consequences would not be apparent until 1410, when the Teutonic Knights crushed the Polish Army at the battle of Grüwald, the greatest battle of the age. Surely on that day Polish Lords lived to regret the absence of Lithuanian allies who might possibly have saved their Empire from destruction. in authoring this post we have re-purposed content from Wikipedia web site. 1] this is what actually happened, leading to the Union of Krewo. Golden Horde triumph at the Terek River
1395
In a desperate battle fought on the banks of the Terek River in the North Caucasus, the forces of Tokhtamysh khan of the Blue Horde prevailed, saving the capital city, Sarai from falling to Timur's invading army.
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The Sinking of the Conte di Savoia
1936
It is by no means unheard of that a small naval squadron of naval units had a major influence on the outcome of a whole war, even though it is rare that such a success is bought dearly by one of the greatest catastrophes in civil navigation.
An alternate history by Dirk Puehl Since the larger part of the Spanish navy remained loyal to the Republic, “Caudillo” Franco had severe problems to ship his insurgent troops from North Africa to the Spanish Mainland. His Italian and German allies supported him with aerial transports but the majority was to be transported by sea. Thus, a convoy was assembled in Tangier to ship contingents of the mutinous Spanish Foreign Legion and mercenaries to Spain. Among them was the Italian liner “Conte di Savoias”, chartered by Franco’s supporter, the Spanish billionaire Juan March. The 800 feet “Conte” was constructed for the accommodation of roughly 2.500 passengers, when the convoy left Tangier, probably twice that number were aboard for the relatively short passage to land the troops near Cadiz. Escorted by the light cruiser “Almirante Cervera” and under the cover of Italian bombers, the convoy left Tangiers on September 9th to be immediately stalked by the Republican submarine C-3 acting in concert with the two Soviet subs. While the Italian bombers were driven off by the heavy anti-aircraft fire from the Spanish battleship “Jaime I” and two destroyers off Cape Espartel and the Republican blockade of the Strait held, the convoy decided to make for the Atlantic and set a course for Ferol. In the night of September 10th, the three subs attacked. A fan of torpedoes fired by “Voroshilovets“ hit the “Canarias” who sank within minutes while at least two projectiles from “Kirovets“ and C-3 struck the “Conte”. The big liner turned to the side while the three submarines crept closer, surfaced and attacked the rest of the convoy with their guns, making a rescue of survivors of the two capital ships impossible. More than 5.000 people were dead by morning. The loss of life and war material proved to be a grave setback for “Caudillo” Franco and his Nationalist insurgents in the Civil War, while the sinking of the “Conte di Savoias” is rated amongst the most severe maritime disasters in history. Monroe's Third Term
1758
America's first three-term President James Monroe was born in his parents' house located in a wooded area of Westmoreland County, Virginia.
After 1824, and imitating Washington, he had preferred to lay down power like his predecessors. But seeing the splintering/infighting of his successors, Jackson, Adams, Crawford and Clay he ended up throwing himself into the ring again and declared his candidacy so as to keep the party unified. in authoring this post, we have re-purposed content from Wikipedia and the Alternate History web sites. 1776
Exalted First Leader Adam Weishaupt formed the Order of the Illuminati in Switzerland. Although thought to be disbanded, this powerful body [REST OF POST NOT AVAILABLE AT YOUR SECURITY CLEARANCE. FNORD.]
1941
Orson Welles' diatribe against William Randolph Hearst, Citizen Kane is denied a Hollywood premiere because of the newspaper mogul's influence. Hearst and Welles battle over the release of the film for 6 months before Welles is forced to surrender to Hearst's wishes. The film is finally released in the 1970's, when it quickly becomes a runaway hit.
1830
Comrade Mary Harris Jones was born in Ireland. After emigrating to America as a girl, she became enthralled with President Walt Whitman and joined the Communist Party. Her formidable speaking talents made her one of the party’s top lights, and in 1900, she became Illinois’ first woman governor, serving until her death in 1906.
1872
After several redesigns and prototypes, Thomas Edison begins construction on what will be his final version of Charles Babbage’s difference engine, to be unveiled on the 50th anniversary of Babbage’s design at the end of the month. The Edison Difference Engine, or Eddie as they become known, will change the world.
12-14-3-12-8
The Oueztecan Navy engaged the mightiest sailors on the globe, the Polynesians, at Bohol, in one of the largest naval battles in the history of the Polynesian Ocean. Although the Oueztecans emerged victorious, it was at such a high cost that they never fought the Polynesians again.
A selection of alternate histories by Robbie Taylor 1920
Srinivasa Ramanujan emerged from surgery weak, but alive. A cancerous tumor had been removed from his stomach barely in time to keep him from dying. Ramanujan lived another thirty years, co-authoring papers with Albert Einstein and J. Michael Oppenheimer, and popularizing the teaching of special relativity in his native India.
1910
Congress of Nation negotiators attempt to strike a peace between the breakaway Jovians and the Q’Bar by meeting with them at the neutral location of Barnard’s Star. Although the talks eventually prove fruitful, many millions die while they are going on.
1967
Jesse Presley married the daughter of an officer at his old Army base in Germany, 22-year old Priscilla Beaulieu. Their marriage produces the King’s only child, Elsie Margaret.
2005
He last vestiges of the plague are wiped out by advanced medical treatments at the Alternate History Academy. Historians predict a swift return to normality and a steady flow of access to important events in history that never occurred today.
1960
American spy plane was shot down over the German Reich, proving that President Strom Thurmond’s denial of American surveillance of Germany was a lie. The international embarrassment further isolated the U.S. from Germany’s growing dominance in world affairs.
Birth of General Grant
1822
Incomparable Civil War General Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio.
Denied office by bureaucratic rules, he was widely considered by his contemporaries of the Reconstruction era to be the "greatest President we never had".
New World Order
1945
Fifty nations gathered in San Francisco, California to begin the United Nations Conference on International Organizations.
The decision had a number of profound consequences. The development of infrastructure to support the UN was indeed a boon to the local economy. However this was matched by a fast-growing counter-culture. By the late 1960s, the UN headquarters was the focal point of anti-war protests and demonstrations that the U.N. Interim Site Committee had not anticipated. Nor had they considered the conspiracy angle, with many of the protestors starting to believe that the UN had been located to suite the needs of a shadowy government - a true New World Order. The Triumph of Maximinus Thrax
238
The barbarian Emperor Maximinus Thrax entered Aquileia after soldiers of the II Parthica finally broke through the city's defences.
Siege of Siena Lifted
1555
After eighteen long months of siege the Florentine-Imperial army withdrew from the Tuscan City State of Siena.
At the heart of this remarkable success was the Monte dei Paschi, the oldest surviving bank in the world. And the financier of mercenary armies that conquered Southern Italy in the forthcoming centuries. Birth of Oliver Ellsworth
1745
3rd Chief Justice of the United States Oliver Ellsworth born in Windsor, Connecticut.
In 1800 his conciliatory negotiations with France contributed to Napoleon's sudden choice three years later to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million [1]. But he suffered ill health on his return journey across the Atlantic. Fighting the temptation to resign, he return to the United States where he served in post until his death in 1807. in authoring this post we have re-purposed content from Wikipedia and Alternate History web sites. [1] speculation [2] in reality, he stepped down from his position of Chief Justice was this sickness and John Adams appointed John Marshall as his successor. In this scenario, when Ellsworth finally does step down, it will be Jefferson appointing his replacement. No Marbury v. Madison, and thus a much weaker Supreme Court with no power of judicial review. This would have major changes in all of US history. Especially with regard to nullification and slavery. We, the People..
1789
The Plural Executive took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street. It was the triumph of good governance that Benjamin Franklin had fought for at the Philadelphia Convention. And if he cut a less than striking image well perhaps that was the whole point, a first step towards collective responsibility.
Of course the loss of Washington removed both the principal candidate for head of the state and also the very man who could have shaped the office of the presidency. And perhaps with the General in the chair, both Washington and Franklin might have chosen to remain silent, adding gravitas but little direction to the proceedings. But instead Franklin was in the chair, demonstrating firm leadership. And the mastery of political genius that he had used to negotiate an endless series of loans in Paris that had ultimately bankrupted the French Monarchy and driven that nation into a state of revolution. During that nine year service, the Continental Congress had forced a series of self-serving individuals upon him that had greatly hindered his progress. Understanding that good governance could so easily be undermined by human weakness, Franklin realised a great truth, that the direction of the United States could never be bestowed upon a single individual. Better that a small committee, with representation from across the States, worked through the critical decisions that would inevitably confront the infant republic. Farthest West
92 A.H.
An invading army of Arabs, Berbers and Iberian Jews under the command of the Muslim Governor of North Africa, Musa
ibn Nusair defeated King Rodrigo and his Visigoth nobility at the Battle of Guadalete. Soon afterwards, they captured the Visigothic capital of Toledo, and the Christian Kingdom of Hispania fell.
Although the recovery attempt ended in bitter defeat, the Moors realized that the Christians would eventually prevail. Because the region known as Lusitania had been founded by the Romans who had brought Christianity to the shores of Europes most south-west point. The Visigoths had after all only filled the vacuum left by the departing Romans, and the Christians therefore laid historic claim to the region. Although the recovery attempt ended in bitter defeat, the Moors realized that the Christians would eventually prevail. Because the region known as Lusitania had been founded by the Romans who had brought Christianity to the shores of Europes most south-west point. The Visigoths had after all only filled the vacuum left by the departing Romans, and the Christians therefore laid historic claim to the region. Knowing that their time of occupation was short, the embattled Moorish enclave set their sights "farthest west". The establishment of a set of Moorish colonies on the Eastern Seaboard of the vast Atlantian continent: Maghrib al-Aqsa. But of course it was a continuation of a long-term historical cycle, because the region was a natural staging ground dating back to the time of sea-faring nations such as the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians that had displaced the indigenous Celts. |
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| Robbie Taylor, Creator of Today in Alternate History | Chris Oakley, guest writer on Today in Alternate History | Dirk Puehl, Editor of #Onthisday | Professor Jeff Provine, Editor of This Day in Alternate History |
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| Jackie Rose, guest writer on Today in Alternate History | Marko Bosscher, tours Natural History museums at Eruditorum. | Alternate Historian, Editor of Today in Alternate History | Pietro Montevecchio, Guest Reader of #Onthisday |
Today's six-way post includes contributions from Dirk Puehl, Marko Bosscher, Reverend Robbie A. Taylor, Pietro Montevecchio, Professor Jeff Provine and the Editor.
Confederate Memorial Day
Although some states celebrate other dates, April 26 is generally adopted being the anniversary of Confederate General Johnston's final surrender to General Sherman at Bennett Place, North Carolina (being the site of the largest surrender of Confederate soldiers ending the American Civil War). For many in the South, that marked the official end of the Civil War.
And twelve months later, the Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus, Georgia passed a resolution to set aside one day annually to memorialize the Confederate dead. Tens of thousands of Southern women commemorated the first Confederate Memorial Day, however some in the northernmost portions of the South did not participate because their flowers were not yet in bloom. A short reflection upon the corruption of the Southern Chivalry Myth, from Page to 'O Connore and McCarthy
The Civil War saw America confronting Evil for the first time. I use the capital E because the subject we discuss is one of the most ancient and hateful manifestation of Evil: slavery.
So slavery as an ancestral expression of Evil: the cruel wish to turn other human beings into things, and possess and buy and sell them erasing their humanity. That was the real enemy the Unionists had to fight on the battlefield. After the stakes of Gettysburg and Shiloh were extinguished, among the Southern people that enemy turned into Guilt. But how much had the loosers to blame themselves after hundreds of thousands of deaths, the annihilation of the old Southern Nationalism and the total collapse of their economy? After the surrender of General Lee at the McLean House on April 9, 1865 the destiny of the South followed two opposite paths: from a social, humanitarian and economic point of view things began to improve, though at a painfully slow pace; from a cultural and literary point of view the dead past resurrected in the form of the myth. The Lost Cause was born. Was the myth of Southern chivalry a faithful mirror of a real past? Were General Lee’s words to his son (“Duty is the sublimest word in the English Literature”) the echo of the real Southern soul? An article by Pietro MontevecchioAt the time when Thomas Nelson Page wrote his Ole Virginia, the answer seemed to be positive. This refined author had given voice not only to the archetypical gentleman of the South, but even to the old good slave (the ‘darkey’) and his typical dialect. Under the eyes of the Lost Cause writers (though Mary Boykin Chesnut went far beyond him in depicting the chaos and complexity of a society at war) slavery itself could be seen as benevolent. This point of view, which actually prevented each one of these first-eye witnesses to write a Southern War and Peace, was not totally misleading. Erskine Caldwell has masterly depicted the shared poverty of the plantations, and the moving acts of generosity of the afroamerican people. The point is that all the works of Timrod, Page and Ryan, in their recounts of loss of the antebellum southern culture and, in the response to this loss, the creation of a postbellum culture of survival, totally hidden the nature of Evil. It is with the greatest Southern writer, William Faulkner, that the burden of Guilt finally crushes all the fragile walls of the myth, bringing an entire culture on the regged edge. Absalom, Absalom! with its cruel Jacobean-like plot and obsessive stress on the depiction of archetypical crimes (the theme of the incestuous double-relation between Henry, Charles and Judith) opens wide the doors which were supposed to be shut forever and obliges us to cast an eye on the Evil which surrounds us. All Thomas Stupen’s efforts to start a dynasty, that is something which is destined to survive, are condemned to failure and even the close tight between Charles and Henry ends with the latter killing the former (an act which finds a parallel in Conrad’s ‘Karain’). Crime is without forgiveness. This earthquake also ruins the traditional pillars of narrative techniques: double-oblique narration and flashbacks deceive the reader and witness the impossibility of truth. Cormac McCarthy, the greatest living American writer, in his Outer Dark adds an essential gloss to Faulkner’s masterpiece. McCarthy tells again a story of incest between a brother, Culla, and a Sister, Rinthy, but in his novel Evil acquires a non-Augustenan, non-Thomistic nature. The damned trinity of knights who bring death all around the Appalachian rural villages and finally kill the product of the guilt, shows that Evil is not simply the absence of Good, but a real presence, a sort of travel-mate which constantly walks at our side. The Lost Cause is definitively lost. Evil triumphs. Walk the Line
1861
“We should have freed the slaves, THEN fired on Fort Sumter.” (Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Gettysburg, 1993)
 If this was a personal conviction of Benjamin or political consideration is not clear, however, the diplomats chosen by him en route to persuade the major European powers to acknowledge the CSA had a clear announcement in their diplomatic bag: the South would abolish slavery. An alternate history by Dirk PuehlWhile the Southern soldiers pushed North during the first months of war and pressed the Federals hard, Benjamin’s diplomatic corps negotiated with both Great Britain and France an agreement – both would acknowledge the CSA as a sovereign state as soon as they had abolished the inanely atavistic idea of slavery, guaranteed taking on an immense governmental debt for taking over Great Britain’s imports that went so far into the Union and suspending the Monroe Doctrine if France continued his invasion of Mexico. When news of this plan leaked out of inner governmental and military circles, the Confederate’s Western border states, Georgia and Texas almost ran amok. Stephens’ speech about the cornerstone of the Confederacy being based on slavery was published in most newspapers, the governors of states like Alabama and Mississippi threatened to secede from the Confederacy and called for early elections. The Union victory at Pittsburg Landing in April 1862 made most of the involved parties reconsider the facts. With the losses suffered in battle, the Western CSA grew cautious in seceding again, while the Europeans asked themselves if they had picked the right horse. It was time for Benjamin to goad President Davies into action. The Richmond Emancipation Proclamation was issued immediately after the Battle of Sharpsburg on October 1st 1862, while French and British naval formations were already at sea, positioned along the vital trade lines to protect them from eventual Union commerce raiders and to the Eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico to end the blockade imposed by the Federals. Emperor Napoleon III of France acknowledged the CSA on October 16th, Palmerston’s government followed three days later. While a war with the Europeans on top of the Civil War was the last thing President Lincoln wanted, things went arse over tip in the Confederacy. Governor Francis Lubbock declared that Texas’ secession from the Confederacy with immediate effect, withdrawing Texan troops from the Eastern theatre of the war to “protect the homeland from restless natives and the French” and to invade Kansas. Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia followed while Arkansas rejoined the Union. The relatively straightforward frontlines of the Civil War had become a hardly understandable patchwork within a month and nobody exactly knew who was at war with whom anymore within four weeks. The USA and what was left of the CSA at least negotiated an armistice by Christmas 1862 to sort things out after New York finally had left the Union and joined the Confederates with the Royal Navy guaranteeing the city’s safety from repercussions by the Federals. What followed was the chaos that minted the continent from Yucatan to the Canadian Border until the end of the century. Booth Evades Capture
1865
After mortally wounding Abraham Lincoln, famed actor John Wilkes Booth leaped gracefully onto the stage of Ford's Theater, landing uninjured while announcing to the audience, "Sic semper tyrannis!" During the chaos, he made his escape out the back door, adding, "The South is avenged!"
An alternate history by Professor Jeff ProvineOne year later, in Columbus, Georgia, the Ladies Memorial Association determined that a day should be set aside for remembrance of the Southern dead in the Civil War. Elizabeth Ellis chose the day April 26, referring to General Johnston's surrender, but soon Booth's disappearance came to mind. After proper review the Association determined the memorial would be held for all dead, including a special commemoration of President Abraham Lincoln. Flowers were placed on graves both Confederate and Union while a wreath was dispatched to Illinois. Booth ironically contributed to great healing between the two halves of the American nation. The Arrests in Columbus
1866
On this day Yankee soldiers arrested Mrs. Elizabeth Rutherford Ellis and other senior members of the Ladies Memorial Association in Columbus, Georgia. The ladies had called for a Confederate Memorial Day on April 26th, scheduled to coincide with General Johnston's surrender at Bennett Place.
Arrests at the Central Cafe, Part 2
1913
The assassin Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili disembarked from the Krakow train at Vienna's North Terminal station. Of dark complexion, he sported a large peasant's moustache and carried a very basic wooden suitcase. Inside was a passport bearing the false name Stavros Papadopoulos, because "Agent Koba" was in fact on the official bloody business of the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. And so he was met at the station by a "junior" party official N.I. Bukharin whose only real involvement was that he had recently agreed to start writing for a left-wing magazine called Proveshchenie ("Enlightenment").
Bukharin took him to the lodgings of a "senior" party member - Leon Bronstein - who was inner circle, not only a powerful figure but also the editor of a radical newspaper called Pravda or "Truth".
An alternate history But of course these men were only allied by the mutuality of their frustrated ambitions. When the "Usual Suspects" were rounded up in the Café Central, they decided to break with their backers and overthrow the Habsburgs their own way. In this venture, they were joined by a cell mate, Adolf Schicklegruber, who had decided to revert his family after receiving the counselling of Dr Sigmund Freud woh advocated a fresh start. And when Freud was shot dead by Austrian Police, his furious anger propelled him into the leadership of this new revolutionary cell... The Bay of Pigs, Redux
1961
A group of Hispanic insurgents led by Ernesto "Che" Guevara land at the Bay of Pigs with the aim of forcing the secession of the 49th State of Cuba. Because statehood on January 1, 1959 had escalated rising tensions on the island that had been building ever since the conclusion of the Spanish-American War. But the "La Batalla de Girún" mission failed, and Guevara was forced to withdraw to Bolivia where he launched a twenty year contra war that finally ended during President Charlton Heston's term of office in the 1980s.
In 2000, in a hotly-contested election, Democratic nominee Fidel Castro narrowly defeated former Texas governor George W. Bush to win the U.S. presidency, becoming the first native Spanish-speaker to hold that office. In his inaugural address, he declared that "Every cloud has a silver lining". Birth of James Buchanan
1791
American statesman James Buchanan, Jr. born to parents of Ulster Scots descent in a log cabin in Cove Gap, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. During an unstable period of vacillating national leaders, he stood out as as one of the few national politicians willing to take a principled stand on the integrity of the Union.
He then served as minister to the Court of St. James's helping to draft the Ostend Manifesto. This document proposed the purchase from Spain of Cuba, then in the midst of revolution and near bankruptcy, declaring the island "as necessary to the North American republic as any of its present .. family of states". Against his recommendation, the final draft of the Manifesto suggested that "wresting it from Spain" if Spain refused to sell would be justified "by every law, human and Divine". When this clause was acted upon by the Pierce administration he resigned and returned to retirement with his beloved wife Anne [1] at his home in the Wheatland. He died in 1868. Of course long before then he had been vindicated because the slave island of Cuba became central to the disputes between the States. Birth of Baron Jean de Batz
1754
on this day French royalist and businessman Jean Pierre de Batz, Baron de Sainte-Croix was born at Goutz-les-Tartas, in the Gers region of south-western France.
But unfortunately for the well-intentioned Baron, these reprieves merely ushered in the interregnum, an even more blood thirsty period during which the French state ripped itself to shreds and ultimately descended into civil war. Out of this chaos finally emerged a new leader called Napoleon Bonaparte. Birth of Comrade Lenin
1870
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, located approximately one thousand miles east of Moscow on the Volga River.
A second cycle of the revolutionary wheel occurred with the apparent collapse of the Imperialist Economies in 1929. Believing that this time around Germany would embrace Marxist doctrine, he sent massive aid to Ernst Thälmann and the German Communist Party (KPD) to support their 1932 putsch. But this move backfired spectacularly, because the KPD were overcome by an alliance of right wing forces led by the Nazi Party. With the tacit support of Anglo-France, the rise of Hitler saw the consolidation of a newly re-invigorated united anti-Communist Front. It would be a bitter legacy that he left to his chosen successor, Leon Trotsky. |
McClellan takes Richmond
1862
"you are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green alike." - Abraham Lincoln
The siege of Fort Sumter had been the first battle of the war, but the first real clash of armies would be at Manassas. The Battle of Bull Run as it would became known would be fought almost within sight of Washington, where the Virginia border border was guarded by troops under Confederate Brig. General PGT Beauregard. Beauregard was something of a celebrity among Confederates as he had also been in command at Sumter. His Union counterpart was the rather less glamorous Brig. General Irvin McDowell, who had the unenviable task of producing the first Union victory. He was under a lot of political pressure, and it has to be said there was an element of timing as well. Most of the Union troops where 90 day volunteers, whose commissions would run out soon enough. In fact some ran out on the day of the battle.
An alternate history by Marko 'Lev' Bosscher But even before the forces at Bull Run had started engaging each other a battle of shadows was played out in Shenandoah valley. Here Joseph E. Johnston was trying to evade a larger Union army under Major General Patterson so they could join the battle and help swing the odds in the favour of the Confederates. Johnston had managed to give Patterson the slip and his troops where already boarding trains at Piedmont station when his pickets reported Union troops approaching. Thinking they were scouts, or the vanguard Johnston dispatched two regiments of his second brigade to repulse them and buy time for his troops to board. These two regiments were however faced with Patterson´s main force and their commander Colonel Bartow quickly dispatched aides to call for reinforcements. Johnston had no choice but to dispatch the as yet unboarded 4th brigade to Bartow’s aid, and give the order for the first brigade to disembark. Those orders caused confusion among the the confederate troops with some other units also disembarking, and part of the Virginians refusing to acknowledge the order. While Jackson was sorting out his Virginians the Confederate units in combat were getting hammered. They had marched into battle without most of their guns and were heavily outnumbered. Bartow had tried to organise a fighting retreat when he was killed and the retreat occurred in a haphazard fashion. But Patterson moved slowly to allow his force to fully form up, giving Johnston the chance to organize his defense. As the battle over Piedmont station dragged on the Army of the Shenandoah was sorely missed by the confederates fighting at Bull Run. Although the flanking maneuver had failed to give McDowell a quick victory the numerical superiority of the Union started to push the confederates ever further back and their position was under threat of being encircled. Beauregard order a retreat to reform the line in a better position, but it was too much for the green troops of the state militia that made up most of his force. The retreat soon turned into a rout and Beauregard had to flee along with most of his men. The battle of Piedmont station was politely called a victory, but Patterson´s delay had caused it to become an extremely bloody affair for the Union. Although the Army of the Shenandoah was destroyed and Johnston captured along with most of his men Patterson was recalled to Washington for a hero´s welcome and a ceremonial position. McDowell only marched slowly into Virginia, fighting the occasional skirmish the Union victory would have a profound effect on the war as a whole. Kentucky and Missouri declared for the Union, and from Kentucky a relatively unknown officer named U.S. Grant started driving up the Mississippi. Beauregard was split between organizing the defense of Richmond and trying to stop the Union from advancing unopposed into Virginia, while in Washington George B. McClellan was creating a whole new army for the Union and advancing his plans to march it on Richmond via Kanawha Valley. McDowell may have been the hero of Bull Run, but McClellan was in Washington and he had the politicians ear. The general feeling was that McDowell was moving too slow and winning too few battles, and McClellan´s grandiose plan for a separate Army of the Potomac that would march quickly on Richmond was finding many supporters. McDowell received scarcely enough reinforcements to replace those units whose allotted 90 days were up, and this caused him to be even more sensitive to losses avoiding battle whenever possible even though he far outnumbered the confederate forces in his line of march. When McClellan started marching the new Army of the Potomac into Virginia via the Shenandoah Valley, where he linked up with Nathalian Bank’s Department of the Shenandoah (which had been formed from Patterson’s former command) Beauregard’s dilemma became painfully obvious. If he allowed the Union armies to march unopposed Richmond would be attacked from two sides, but he did not have the men to fight both armies at the same time and at the same time keep enough men on hand to defend Richmond should either army reach it. Deciding that offense was the only viable defense he dispatched half of his forces under General Lee to fight both Union armies, while he stayed in Richmond to oversee it’s defense. The plan involved Lee driving back the cautious McDowell and then marching hard to intercept McClellan at Waynesboro, if pressed Lee could fall back on Charlottesville where he could receive reinforcements from Richmond. It was perhaps the best possible plan for the impossible situation, but it misjudged both Union commanders. Beauregard had not realised that McDowell was actually eager to fight a major battle, even as he avoided minor ones. And McClellan was an efficient and driven man who above all believed in the larger-than-life image he had created of himself, with Shenandoah Valley all but abandoned by the Confederacy he marched his troops faster than anyone had anticipated. McDowell had made a wide circle around Fredericksburg and was south of Spotsylvania when Lee approached and took up positions on Po River, forcing the time-pressed Lee to attack him across relatively open land while his artillery and part of his troops were hidden in the trees. The battle was extremely bloody for the confederates as their attacks were time and again repulsed by Union cannon opening fire from the treeline. But McDowell’s counterattacks proved to be equally vain and Lee ultimately managed to turn his flank. McDowell retreated across the Po, greatly helped by the fact that the trees obscured his movement. McDowell had been defeated in battle, but he had won an important tactical victory for the Union. Lee’s march on Waynesboro was now out of the question as he pursued McDowell and he had lost far too many men for it it to be viable in any case. When McClellan marched out of Shenandoah Valley it come as a rude shock to the defenders of Charlottesville who had expected Confederates rather than Union soldiers, and they abandoned Charlottesville for Richmond rather than risking battle with a superior Union force. This was the sign for Jefferson Davis to leave Richmond with the Confederate government and set up a new capital in Knoxville, it was perhaps a sensible move but one that caused much resentment. Morale in Richmond fell as many felt Davis had abandoned them. Civilians started fleeing the city in droves, joined by more than a few confederate soldiers. Desertion had been a problem for the confederacy since Bull Run and the string of Confederate defeats did little to bolster morale. McClellan being a methodius man started investing Richmond, even as he openly talked of taking the city by storm. Beauregard tried to recall Lee to attack McClellan and lift the siege, but Lee was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he stopped pursuing McDowell the latter could reform his battered army and shadow him, to fall upon him as he engaged McClellan, but as he pursued McDowell he was moving farther and farther away from the Confederate capital. In the end it was McDowell who forced the issue, having received direct orders from Lincoln to engage the enemy at all cost he regrouped as best he could and marched against Lee. The attack came as a complete surprise, and for a while McDowell had the upper hand. But he failed to capitalise on his advantage and gave Lee time to reorder his troops and go on the offensive, it would be the largest Confederate victory of the campaign. But it also left Lee’s force completely spent and several days march from the capital. Lee turned instead to Fredericksburg, hoping to find the troops to carry out his orders to engage McClellan. In Richmond Beauregard tried to break the siege from the inside out, but his attempt faltered almost immediately under withering Union fire, if morale had been good the troops might have pushed on. Instead they almost broke out in open rebellion. Beauregard sought and got terms from McClellan, he and his troops were allowed to leave the city with the exception of the Virginia regiments (McClellan would later receive a personal bollocking from president Lincoln for assuming such responsibility himself). Virginia was now securely in Union hands and things started to move rapidly. North Carolina had been the last state to secede from the Union, and with Union armies within reach of it’s border it would be the first to secede from the Confederacy. The governors of other states had been calling for Davis to step down and when he threatened to depose the governor of North Carolina by force, if the state did not formally rejoin the war effort, open rebellion broke out. Davis stubbornly remained in office long enough for Georgia and South Carolina to renounce the Confederacy and join a mutual alliance with North Carolina, the states would aid each other in defense against any incursion from either the Confederacy or the Union. When Davis did step down former vice-president Stephens promised elections would be held shortly, it was a political blunder. Stephens had expected to reconfirmed, but he was heavily implicated in the failing war effort. Several states put forward their own candidates, including Union-held Virginia which nominated war hero Robert E. Lee. This led to heated discussions about which states were even allowed to vote, let alone nominate candidates, while Stephens was burdened with having to restore order to the Confederate army. While the South was bickering amongst itself the Union was stepping up the war effort. Three-year draftees had started to be summoned after Bull Run as an insurance in case the Richmond strategy failed, and these were now starting to replace the 90 day volunteers. McClellan was in charge of holding Virginia while General Sherman, who had been promoted after Bull Run and marched with McClellan to Richmond, invaded Tennessee. In the west Grant was marching into Tennessee from the opposite side. After several Union victories in Tennessee the Confederacy completely fell apart and the states started suing for peace. It would be a complicated peace process as none of the states now recognised Stephens’ authority. The slave-questions was effectively pushed down the line as most states, except those occupied by the Union were readmitted under the same provisions they had had before the war. The so-called “Great Southern Resurgence” an economic boom that happened ten years after the war would revive fears of a renewed secession movement, the Southern States were granted greater representation in Washington and slavery officially became a state’s issue over which the national government had no say. Although slavery died a slow death over time the last of the slavery planatations lasted well into the middle of the twentieth century. In reality Patterson failed to check Johnston’s movements before Bull Run and these forces were vital in causing the defeat of the Union Army at Bull Run, which quenched any hopes of a quick victory. McClellan did create the Army of the Potomac, but he proved a brilliant organizer but a deeply flawed field commander. The war would last for four years and end with the total defeat of the Confederacy and widespread destruction across many Southern States leading to long-term economic depression. 1731
British author Daniel Defoe died en route to the moon. One of the first notable Englishmen to embrace the Mlosh, Defoe wrote 30 books about them, and even lived for a few months on the colony ship in Ireland. Although most Europeans of his time feared them, he felt that they provided “the most pure adventure ever presented before mankind,” and jumped at every opportunity to convince people of it.
1803
Thousands of meteorites rained down on Paris, France, killing 34 people and leveling buildings throughout the city. Although excited astronomers across Europe felt that they were evidence of material from outer space, the Archbishop of Paris called the judgement of God and spearheaded the angry mobbing of the Sorbonne, which had survived the meteor shower.
1824
George Gordon Byron, an English baron, died in Paris, France of apparent alcohol poisoning. Byron had been a poet of some esteem before rumors of incest in his family drove him to exile in France, where he drank himself to death.
1881
British novelist Benjamin Disraeli died in Beaconsfield. Although he had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Prime Minister Derby, his own political goals were limited by British law barring Jews from holding office in Parliament. He died before this law was finally stricken from the books in 1904.
A selection of alternate histories by Robbie Taylor 1920
Srinivasa Ramanujan emerged from surgery weak, but alive. A cancerous tumor had been removed from his stomach barely in time to keep him from dying. Ramanujan lived another thirty years, co-authoring papers with Albert Einstein and J. Michael Oppenheimer, and popularizing the teaching of special relativity in his native India.
1937
The German Underground’s air force, the Luftwaffe, supplies air support to Spanish fascists fighting the Greater Zionist Resistance. Employeeing jet designs from 1968 supplied by their neo-Nazi benefactors, the Luftwaffe was able to smash G.Z.R. positions across Spain, one of the first G.U. victories in their long war.
1982
The leader of the band The Clash, Joe Strummer, disappears. A month later, he is recognized at London’s Heathrow Airport, handing out flowers as a member of the Hari Krishna sect. He announces to the world that he has given up music for his new spiritual life.
1985
President Ralph Shephard’s Constitutionalists in Congress pass the American Future Act, which, among other things, creates a separate school system for minorities, leftists and the poor. The regular school system, which consumes almost all of school funding, is only used by children of the elite; the new schools are starved of funding and are shut down completely by 1990.
1986
There was an explosion at the Cooper Nuclear Power Plant in the Nebraska Soviet. Although only a few dozen people died in the initial blast and fire, thousands were killed by the radiation that was released, and much of America’s food supply was contaminated for years after. The Soviet States of America tried to keep it quiet, but the Mexican government reported the disaster to the world when radiation levels in their own country spiked.
2001
Colby Ross and Samantha Robinson burn everything in their grandfathers’ hidden basement in order to prevent anyone from repeating their mistake. The two vow never again to delve into the hidden mysteries of the past, and move far away from each other.
Passing of Margaret Thatcher
2013
Former Leader of the Conservative Party Margaret Thatcher has died. She was eighty-seven years old.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She was unlucky to have missed out on the Premiership, because of her Party's narrow defeat at the polls in the 1979 general election.
An alternate historyUnaware of this, Thatcher derided Foot for seeking a peaceful, multi-lateral resolution in the United Nations. Take unaware by the Contra gun running, she was surprised when the parties arrived at an economically viable alternative - a buy out of relocation for sovereignty under which Islanders were suitably compensated. This was part funded by the Americans who continued the covert support into Nicaragua until the fall of the Sandinistas. And meanwhile, that summer, England won the Football World Cup in Spain and nearly everyone forget all about it. It wasn't the kind of flag-waving patriotism Margaret Thatcher had in mind, and she was forced to resign after a landslide defeat at the 1983 general election. In reality this action actually happened, the Junta pulled the plug on the Contras in protest at the US support of British policy in the Falklands. The Man in Black
1932
American singer-songwriter, actor, and author John R. "Johnny" Cash born in Kingsland, Arkansas.
Although Gore recognized that Cash was to the left of him on many issues, he appreciated his concern for liberal causes, social conditions and also wanted laws and policies that would help the poor and disadvantaged. Their policies would converge with the abolition of the death penalty, which Cash had advocated since his 1960's rendition of "25 minutes to go" a reflection of a doomed man waiting on death row. However after Gore was narrowly elected to the Presidency in 2000, this advocacy was nearly scuppered by June's near death experience from post-operative complications. Fortunately, she survived and they both spent their remaining years working alongside Gore on a national program that was ultimately successful in abolishing the death penalty. Second City
1942
Richard Michael Daley born in Bridgeport, an historically Irish-American neighborhood located south of the Chicago Loop. He was the fourth of seven children and eldest son of Richard J. and Eleanor Daley, the late Mayor and First Lady of America's Second City, Chicago.
In authoring this article we have re-purposed content from both the Wikipedia and also Alternate History web sites. [1] in reality, they lost to the American League Detroit Tigers. [2] & [3] neither of these happened. [4] Insight from Michelle Ross and [5] Jackie Rose. Birth of Henry IX (The Great)
1594
Henry IXth, King of England born Henry Frederick Stuart (eldest son of James I & VI) in Stirling Castle, Scotland.
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| Robbie Taylor, Creator of Today in Alternate History | Scott Palter, guest writer on Today in Alternate History | Dirk Puehl, Editor of #Onthisday | Professor Jeff Provine, Editor of This Day in Alternate History |
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| Jackie Rose, guest writer on Today in Alternate History | Marko Bosscher, tours Natural History museums at Eruditorum. | Alternate Historian, Editor of Today in Alternate History | Pietro Montevecchio, Guest Reader of #Onthisday |
Today's six-way post includes contributions from Dirk Puehl, Marko Bosscher, Reverend Robbie A. Taylor, Pietro Montevecchio, Professor Jeff Provine and the Editor.
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