Southern Victory
Author | Harry Turtledove |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Alternate history |
Published | 1997–2007 |
The Southern Victory series or Timeline-191[1] is a series of eleven alternate history novels by author Harry Turtledove,[2][3] beginning with How Few Remain (1997) and published over a decade. The period addressed in the series begins during the Civil War and spans nine decades, up to the mid-1940s. In the series, the Confederate States defeats the United States of America in 1862, therefore making good its attempt at secession and becoming an independent nation. Subsequent books are built on imagining events based on this alternate timeline.[4]
The secondary name is derived from General
List of books in the series
The Southern Victory series consists of 11 books, published between 1997 and 2007. The first book in the series is
- How Few Remain (1997)
- The "Great War" Trilogy
- American Front (1998)
- Walk in Hell (1999)
- Breakthroughs (2000)
- The "American Empire" Trilogy
- Blood and Iron (2001)
- The Center Cannot Hold (2002)
- The Victorious Opposition (2003)
- The "Settling Accounts" Tetralogy
- Return Engagement (2004)
- Drive to the East (2005)
- The Grapple (2006)
- In at the Death (2007)
Fictional chronology
After recovering the lost copy of Special Order 191 before it falls into Union hands, Confederate forces catch George B. McClellan's Union Army by surprise and destroy it on the banks of the Susquehanna River in 1862. Occupying Philadelphia, the Confederacy gains diplomatic recognition from the United Kingdom and France, who mediate a peace deal by which the Confederacy achieves independence. President Abraham Lincoln considers his failure to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, along with the possibility of the U.S. finding its own European allies in the future.
The United States cannot afford
In the wake of the war's loss, Lincoln leads his loyal faction of the Republican Party into merging with the nascent Socialist Party of America, changing US politics as this becomes the second major party, supplanting the Republicans afterward. Over the rest of the decade, manumission of slaves is nominally implemented throughout the Confederacy—easing relations with Britain and France, which had both abolished slavery much earlier—although the black population continues to live in apartheid-like conditions. The U.S. secures an alliance with the new German Empire amid a national atmosphere of revanchism.
Great War
Upon the
In 1916 a new technical advance is introduced: the "barrel". George Armstrong Custer develops a doctrine for armored cavalry, but his tactics are not adopted and the first offensive is a failure. The U.S. successfully advances in Canada and defends Hawaii in a large naval engagement; the C.S. hopes that attrition and war weariness might knock the U.S. out, but pro-war President Roosevelt wins reelection, and the Confederacy is forced to begin recruiting black troops with a promise of civil rights after the war. The following year sees breakthroughs in Tennessee and Quebec using Custer's massed barrel tactics, while a simultaneous advance in Virginia recaptures a devastated Washington. With Union troops approaching its capital, the C.S. sues for peace, with it suffering the same fate as Germany in our timeline. Territorial changes include Kentucky and the western half of Texas (henceforth known as Houston) being annexed into the U.S. as states. The C.S. States of Arkansas, Sonora, and Virginia lose territory to the U.S. states of Missouri, New Mexico, and West Virginia respectively, and Sequoyah is placed under occupation by U.S. forces. All of Canada (except Quebec, which is released as a U.S. ally) is annexed by the U.S. under occupation. In Europe, army mutinies lead to France's exit from the war; Italy never enters it, while Russia is wracked by revolution. Brazil also joins the Central Powers along with Chile and Paraguay against Argentina, and increasingly isolated, Britain capitulates as well, ending the war.
American Empire
Jubilant at having finally beaten the Confederates, the U.S. soon encounters strikes and labor unrest, fueling political gains by the Socialist Party. The Confederacy experiences hyperinflation and a growth in reactionary extremism—ex-sergeant Jake Featherston achieves popularity via his tirades against the "stab in the back". He comes to lead the C.S. Freedom Party, reorganizing it around his own ambitions with a loyal paramilitary wing and a radio propaganda program. However, Featherston loses several bids for office, and a Freedom Party assassination of the Confederate President drains much of his support until the crash of 1929. With the ranks of his party swelled by popular unrest, Featherston finally becomes President in 1934, and sets about establishing control over the government, the police force, and the expanding army. He demands the return of former Confederate territory in forms of Kentucky, Sequoyah and Houston; after negotiating for plebiscites to be held in those states, Kentucky and Houston vote for re-admittance whilst Sequoyah votes to remain part of the United States.
Elsewhere in the world, the Great War results in independence for Quebec and Ireland, as well as other concessions by Britain; Canada falls under harsh U.S. rule while Germany sets up
Settling Accounts
Against Union expectations, Confederate forces under
In Europe, the Germans lose Ukraine and the Left Bank of the Rhine, but defend East Prussia and Poland. Britain occupies Ireland, but its Norwegian campaign fails spectacularly. Backed by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, Germany begins counter-offensives in 1942. With both Russia and Austria-Hungary facing ethnic uprisings, the German Army is able to win at Kyiv and threaten Petrograd, as well as retake the Low Countries. Having won the race for a nuclear weapon, Germany destroys Petrograd with an atomic bomb; as more belligerents acquire the technology, the list of cities targeted grows to include Philadelphia, Newport News, Charleston, Paris, Hamburg, London, Norwich, and Brighton. Russia, France, and Britain sue for peace.
With Texas seceding, Patton surrendering in Alabama, and Featherston killed by a black guerrilla while trying to escape, the Confederacy surrenders unconditionally. U.S. forces hold trials for crimes against humanity and take extreme measures against the remaining bands of guerrillas, while generally aided by the scattered remaining black population. In 1945, new President Thomas E. Dewey pledges to reintegrate the southern states into the Union and to continue the alliance with Germany, while suppressing the development of nuclear weapons by their enemies France, Japan, and Russia.
Reviews and reactions
Reviewer Lionel Ward notes that although the series "ends in an apparent happy ending", "integrating the Confederate territories into the United States would be an impossible mission"—"an open-ended military occupation of a very large sullen population, which would inevitably burst into rebellion sooner or later(...) A far more reasonable policy, never even considered, would have been to revive the Confederate Whig Party under US auspices and make a pragmatic agreement with a rehabilitated Confederacy". Ward concludes:[6]
The series ends with the US holding by the tail not one tiger but two [The Confederate territories and Canada, occupied since 1917], plus a big aggressive wildcat [The Mormons in Utah]. [...] In this history, the post-1945 United States has nothing like the dominant global position it had in the equivalent period of actual history. There are several rival powers with both the means and the motive to make trouble for the US and actively foment rebellion.
See also
- Second Mexican War (Southern Victory)
- American Civil War alternate histories
- The Guns of the South, another Harry Turtledove-written novel dealing with a C.S. victory
References
- ^ ELHEFNAWY, NADER (1 October 2007). "SETTLING ACCOUNTS: IN AT THE DEATH BY HARRY TURTLEDOVE". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
- ^ RAGHUNATH, Riyukta (2017). "Alternative realities: Counterfactual historical fiction and possible worlds theory" (PDF). Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA): 14. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
- ^ "Uchronia: Great War Multi-Series (Southern Victory)". www.uchronia.net.
- ISBN 0393078302. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
- ^ Fleming, Ryan (27 June 2019). "Ryan's Reviews - How Few Remain, by Harry Turtledove". SEA LION PRESS. Retrieved 10 March 2020.
- ^ Dr. Lionel P. Ward "Is Alternate History An Amusing Pastime, Or Does It Have Something Serious To Tell Us?" in Barbara De Hartog (ed.) "Round Up of Recent Essays In and On Speculative Fiction"
External links
- The Great War page, maintained by Steven H Silver.