Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)

[DanMcCollum]

Great chapter as always, although i'm sad that the bonapartes will go eventutally your napoleonic victory TL is a great comfort.

I'm still hoping - perhaps against hope - for a restoration eventually after some decades of military rule. I mean, Général Francois Frank can't be in charge forever And having France ending up as a constitutional monarchy with a semi-ceremonial Emperor is ... kinda ironic considering French history in the 19th and 20th century.

 

[Mayukh]

Why do I feel that Maurass's legacy ittl will be simmilar to that of Lenin in some circles in otl.
(Oh no!!!! The Revolution was a glorious utopia while he lived... Its his cruel successors who ruined it into a dystopia...)

 

[Devoid]

I'll respond to all those above comments by just remarking that I'm amused that despite no particular textual hints (that I can think of) to suggest it, it's simply taken for granted that Vardaman will get whacked sooner or later lol

I think a combination of John Sharp Williams' assassination setting a precedent, somebody proposing it at some point and everybody just agreeing all like "yeah that makes sense" with no pushback, upcoming instability and general violence in the CSA, a simple wish for karma to get the supremely unlikeable Vardaman, and an element I'm choosing to term "TL-191 brain."

Plus no CSA president has been assassinated, and considering their political system that's bound to go awry at some point. Vardaman may not be fated to be murdered but he is kind of begging for it.

EDIT: Plus, there's thematic resonances in it (beyond just the mirroring pointed out below, which isn't really necessary, it is very much poetic justice for a very hateable figure that represents the worst of Southern society).

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

I'll respond to all those above comments by just remarking that I'm amused that despite no particular textual hints (that I can think of) to suggest it, it's simply taken for granted that Vardaman will get whacked sooner or later lol

Well, its kinda mirror poetic in our thoughts here.

BEFORE WAR
President dies of natural causes before war - Joseph Johnston.
Speaker of the House assassinated - John Sharp Williams
Unknown/untested quality of a VP ascends - Cotton Ed Smith (and pretty much incompetant)

ENDING OF WAR
President Assassinated - James K Vardman
Speaker of the House ???? - ???
Unknown/untested quality of a VP ascends - Patton (and pretty much competant - or able administrator, just left with poisoned chalice)

 

[DanMcCollum]

I think a combination of John Sharp Williams' assassination setting a precedent, somebody proposing it at some point and everybody just agreeing all like "yeah that makes sense" with no pushback, upcoming instability and general violence in the CSA, a simple wish for karma to get the supremely unlikeable Vardaman, and an element I'm choosing to term "TL-191 brain."

Plus no CSA president has been assassinated, and considering their political system that's bound to go awry at some point. Vardaman may not be fated to be murdered but he is kind of begging for it.

This, plus the fact that I think many of us can see no feasible way for Vardaman to effectively (or ineffectively) governmen after the end of the war. He's just too ... much. Coupled, of course, with a shared despire I suspect to see the Fire-eater faction of the Confederates finally get their symbolic comeupance.

 

[KingSweden24]

Why do I feel that Maurass's legacy ittl will be simmilar to that of Lenin in some circles in otl.
(Oh no!!!! The Revolution was a glorious utopia while he lived... Its his cruel successors who ruined it into a dystopia...)

Perhaps. “Real integralism has never been tried!”

I think a combination of John Sharp Williams' assassination setting a precedent, somebody proposing it at some point and everybody just agreeing all like "yeah that makes sense" with no pushback, upcoming instability and general violence in the CSA, a simple wish for karma to get the supremely unlikeable Vardaman, and an element I'm choosing to term "TL-191 brain."

Plus no CSA president has been assassinated, and considering their political system that's bound to go awry at some point. Vardaman may not be fated to be murdered but he is kind of begging for it.

This, plus the fact that I think many of us can see no feasible way for Vardaman to effectively (or ineffectively) governmen after the end of the war. He's just too ... much. Coupled, of course, with a shared despire I suspect to see the Fire-eater faction of the Confederates finally get their symbolic comeupance.

All very fair!

 

[naraht]

I'll respond to all those above comments by just remarking that I'm amused that despite no particular textual hints (that I can think of) to suggest it, it's simply taken for granted that Vardaman will get whacked sooner or later lol

I don't think that we do. At least two of the comments above assume that he commits Suicide. The honest question that I have is what is the probability that every Black person with a gun is willing to let the USA Government simply lock him up, even if it is a life sentence. (While I know you are avoiding TL191, the comparison to Featherstone is worth thinking about)
The basic question is "Where on the line between OTL Davis and TL191 Featherstone is Vardaman"? (And where is his predecessor who started the war (and tolerated the vengence squads in Maryland)

 

[dcharles]

I'll respond to all those above comments by just remarking that I'm amused that despite no particular textual hints (that I can think of) to suggest it, it's simply taken for granted that Vardaman will get whacked sooner or later lol

It's wishful headcanon.

 

[MisterP]

outright suicide would be oddly reminiscent of Edmund Ruffin, who was said to have fired "the first shot of the Civil War" at Ft. Sumter 1861--and poetically the last, through his palate '65

 

[Neshaminy]

Yeah, it's just a bit hard to imagine a guy who said stuff like this: (All actual quotes from the real-life Vardaman, and TTL's version, having grown up in a South where outright slavery is still legal, is likely to be, if anything, even worse)

If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy

There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter.... Mississippi's constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics. Not the 'ignorant and vicious', as some of the apologists would have you believe, but the nigger.... Let the world know it just as it is.... In Mississippi we have in our constitution legislated against the racial peculiarities of the Negro.... When that device fails, we will resort to something else.

[The White House] is so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable.

I am opposed to the nigger's voting, it matters not what his advertised moral and mental qualifications may be. I am just as much opposed to Booker Washington, with all his Anglo-Saxon reenforcement, voting, as I am to voting by the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon, Andy Dotson, who blacks my shoes every morning. Neither one is fit to perform the supreme functions of citizenship.

Being able and willing to remain as head of a Confederacy which is occupied by US troops who have just abolished slavery and completely destroyed Confederate society as he knows it by force.

 

[Meshakhad]

I'm wondering if the hand on the gun that kills Vardaman might be his own.

 

[ChrisTheCat]

I'm hoping that, after France loses the CEW, that they at least end up in a good place again within 20-30 years, even as second to Germany. I know it's because it is so difficult to do, but you never see a timeline in which both Germany and France succeed - one ends up trouncing the other and the loser either collapses/is torn apart, ends up a backwater, or both. Good luck France!

 

[naraht]

I'm hoping that, after France loses the CEW, that they at least end up in a good place again within 20-30 years, even as second to Germany. I know it's because it is so difficult to do, but you never see a timeline in which both Germany and France succeed - one ends up trouncing the other and the loser either collapses/is torn apart, ends up a backwater, or both. Good luck France!

From the Cincoverse thread (which the Author has said is somewhat less official and might be subject to retcons)

It just feels from what you've shared here that someone in France from the 21st century looking back over French history would identify 1913 (+/-) as being when France was at its height in a way that OTL wouldn't.

That they definitely would. France in 1913 is easily a Top Five power alongside UK, Germany, the US, and [Insert your choice of number five here]. They had arguably the best 1870-90 stretch of any country on earth economically and geopolitically, and though the 1890s were a rough decade for them comparatively they remain a top five industrial producer and as a colonial/naval/financial great power probably second only to Britain, and as far as anyone in 1913 knows their army is very likely superior to Germany’s. A declining power in the midpoint of the century with its best days behind it spending most of its time punching down at rebels to keep Algeria because its all that’s left for them is a huge step down from that.

 

[Lemonfish]

I'm hoping that, after France loses the CEW, that they at least end up in a good place again within 20-30 years, even as second to Germany. I know it's because it is so difficult to do, but you never see a timeline in which both Germany and France succeed - one ends up trouncing the other and the loser either collapses/is torn apart, ends up a backwater, or both. Good luck France!

Well we already know that France fall under military dictatorship that last till the 90s, so unfortunately no, it won’t get better anytime soon.

 

[Rattigan]

It was thus the case that most of the French public was equally contemptuous of Germany, Britain, Italy, even Spain, and with this being one of the few things that united a country that felt anxious about its place as the Great Power of the continent

Never was a truer word written about France in general

 

[Devoid]

I'm hoping that, after France loses the CEW, that they at least end up in a good place again within 20-30 years, even as second to Germany. I know it's because it is so difficult to do, but you never see a timeline in which both Germany and France succeed - one ends up trouncing the other and the loser either collapses/is torn apart, ends up a backwater, or both. Good luck France!

That's because the factors that led Germany and France to hate each other from 1870 to 1945 (and arguably since before then) meant that, without a PoD further back (like, at least 18th century, probably) competing interests means they're pretty much fated to clash before they can make an EU-style thing that makes them each other's BFFs like IOTL.

 

[DanMcCollum]

Well we already know that France fall under military dictatorship that last till the 90s, so unfortunately no, it won’t get better anytime soon.

You know, this brings up a good point - has there ever been a military government in the modern world which lasted over 70 years before (I'm assuming that the dictatorship comes to power some time after the end of the CEW - though its possible its later if Nappy V survives the disaster of the war's end)? I'm going to be interested in seeing how this dictatorship manages to justify its existence for such a length of time and how it manages the transfer of power, because I can't imagine a single ruling figure living THAT long

 

[naraht]

You know, this brings up a good point - has there ever been a military government in the modern world which lasted over 70 years before (I'm assuming that the dictatorship comes to power some time after the end of the CEW - though its possible its later if Nappy V survives the disaster of the war's end)? I'm going to be interested in seeing how this dictatorship manages to justify its existence for such a length of time and how it manages the transfer of power, because I can't imagine a single ruling figure living THAT long

Given that IMO Juche has more in common with being a Religion than it has with Communism, do you count the 70 years of OTL North Korea as being a Communist Government, a Military Government or a Religious Government?
Having said that, even with the 2nd empire and the later Bonapartes, France is a country with at least a 50 year tradition of multi-party elections. I think the country iOTL with a tradition of Democracy with the longest "Military Government" may be either Francoist Spain, Portugal with Estado Novo and *those* are essentially the work of one person.
Honestly, the most likely way in which there is a military Dictatorship would be for the Napoleons to take on more political powers "For the Duration" that never ends.

 

[naraht]

The odd thing to me about France falling to this level of Poverty falls into a couple of categories.
1) With World War I levels of technology, having a significant (>40%) amount of the country destroyed in the course of the War isn't likely, there are chokepoints on the borders with both Germany *and* Italy. The Franco Italian border is probably *easier* to run barbed wire and trenches from End to End than the German border and the French will have an active ally in the Belgians, which more than balances out Germany having Luxembourg. (Belgium on the other hand will end up as bad or worse that OTL WWI)
2) Certain significant French Cities just won't be in the line of fire because it will be more worthwhile to make sure Paris falls first. Why does Nantes (to pick an inland city in the west of France *ever* get attacked? This is sort of the contrapositive to Germany in WWII against the Western Allies. To get to Berlin, you have to steamroll through 80%+ of Germany and Germany still doesn't have Berlin at its heart the way that France has Paris at its heart. (The question as to whether Germany packs it in if the Russian Empire conquers Berlin in WWI is an interesting question)
3) Let's say postwar that Germany and Italy in Europe take every square mile of land that was ever part of the HRE plus Corsica, and everything outside Europe except Algeria. (Not sure why they'd keep Algeria and not Corsica, but let's go with that.) They would *still* be one of the half dozen most populated countries in Europe, still be relatively prosperous and have an academic tradition that would keep them "First World". Sure, they could be put into a place where they'd be inferior to Germany for the rest of time, but they don't have the issues the Confederates do with 1/3 of their population (Negros) in an active revolt as long as a neighbor wants to.
4) 15 years after the war, I still expect them to be in the top 10 in Europe. They'd be behind Germany, Russia, Italy, the Ottomans (presuming the Italian/Ottoman war hasn't kicked off), Hungary(?) and the UK. Who else would they be behind? Spain? Bulgaria? Sweden? Greece?

 

[Lemonfish]

You know, this brings up a good point - has there ever been a military government in the modern world which lasted over 70 years before (I'm assuming that the dictatorship comes to power some time after the end of the CEW - though its possible its later if Nappy V survives the disaster of the war's end)? I'm going to be interested in seeing how this dictatorship manages to justify its existence for such a length of time and how it manages the transfer of power, because I can't imagine a single ruling figure living THAT long

Myanmar’s military junta last for half the century, Francoist Spain and stroessner Paraguay also survive quite some time, so there is definitely some OTL examples to follow.