Fire Warms the Northern Lands -- A Prussian AAR

Epilogue: Chapter 8​

After a series of wars with Mexico, the United States finally completed what amounted to a staged annexation of Mexico over the course of several decades. The final annexation, of Mexico City, occurred on December 6th, 1920.

Though the gradual assimilation of Mexico and its population was not impossible, it did cause no small degree of social distress within the United States. Besides the increased population this entailed, it also was somewhat of a culture shock, beyond what the USA had had to face with earlier expansion, which was primarily into less populated areas. Linguistic differences were less foreign, so to speak, to American demographic changes, but the concentration of so many Spanish-speaking residents in one area, with their different cultural norms, drawn from both local Indian and European Spanish origins, caused a bilingual and multicultural atmosphere that was relatively unusual, and proved difficult to bridge. It is interesting to speculate how different the United States might have been, had they not invaded and incorporated so vast and different a land as Mexico.



From 1921-1928, President Calvin Coolidge – “Silent Cal” as he was known affectionately, because he was so laconic – provided stable, steady leadership for a recovering economy and a growing population. His attitude toward rebuilding after the war was characterized by the press as “silent confidence,” which the American people needed.

The scars of the war with Germany still itched in the Northeast. Hundreds of thousands of families around the country had lost sons in the war. But now that the invaders were gone, some healing could occur. The German occupation had been relatively kind, as wartime occupations go. The economy began to recover on its own from the disruptions of war.

Coolidge's economic governance, he believing in “lassiez-faire” non-intervention in the economy, allowed it to build, steadily at times, and far more rapidly at others. Considering the great emergency, Coolidge did not see it as contradictory to offer some forms of government assistance. However, the main responsibility of caring for those who had been wounded, invalided or made destitute by war fell upon private charities and, especially, churches. Which was, to the mind of Coolidge and most Americans, as it should be.

This post-war, post-Wilsonian era at first proved to be one of the most prosperous and carefree the United States had ever experienced. The final acquisitions of Mexico had ended that front of international conflict, and there really were no others to be had. People had money to spend, and began to save and invest it, which brought further improvements.

Industrialization had made manufactured products cheaper, so citizens could buy not just necessities, but also conveniences. The American road network opened up, paralleling in some places, but often outpacing and reaching far beyond the rail network. Automobiles, and even aeroplanes, became regular sights across much of the United States. The American economy soared, and the sky seemed to be the limit.

In 1928, Coolidge announced that he would not run for a third term in office. Herbert Hoover, a handsome and successful businessman who had served as Coolidge’s Commerce Secretary, and who had also run one of the primary post-war aid societies, seemed the perfect choice as Coolidge’s successor.

But Hoover was not so philosophically conservative, and was unsure of himself – distinctly different from the quiet, never wavering leadership of “Silent Cal.”

The economy is a delicate thing, and is so driven by perception that it can be unbalanced by any deviations from the norm. The economy – seemingly strong as it was – was experiencing what economists call a “bubble” – an overvaluation of stocks based on unrealistic expectations of growth. It was a dangerous condition for the economy to be in.

And Coolidge’s laissez-faire approach was fine, by itself. But certain areas of the economy lacked regulation that should, perhaps, have had them. One area was the stock-trading sector, where traders bought stocks “on margin” – basically on credit – and cashed in to pay off the debt once the stock’s value had risen. Naturally, traders who took this risk presumed a rising market.

In mid-1929, minor warning signs began to crop up. Uncertainty, brought by Hoover’s back-and-forth posturing on federal aid to the war victims, and to agriculture, caused the economy to cool. Wise investors were concerned that he might reverse many of Coolidge’s policies, and so pulled back their investments to wait and see. This caused stock prices to level out, and caused consternation among those who had been trading on margin. The savviest of them saw the risk increase, and pulled their own investments out. Which left the riskiest investors and the least experienced investors in the market that was rapidly turning cold.

Panic gripped the system, once people realized what was going on. Runs on the banks and pleas to “sell at any price” ended any normalcy in the market, and it dropped sharply. The apparent value of Wall Street dropped by as much as 20 percent, and then began a slow parabola downward. Hoover made a series of missteps in responding to the crisis, worsening the situation. The United States economy entered a depression – not the worst it had ever experienced, but a dramatic fall from vast heights, to be sure.

International finance, linked as it had become in a “shrinking world,” responded to the American crisis, transmitting the crisis to varying degrees to most of the economies around the world. Many entered either a depression or a recession. The process fed upon itself, and the slump seemed to have entrenched itself around the world.



***EditAAR’s Note: This is NOT the “Great Depression” – it is a milder version of it. I may have my numbers slightly off, as I don't have time to look it up, but I think I positioned this at about 2/3 as bad as the real Great Depression. The real crisis got started in a process very similar to the one described above, but was worsened in the early ‘30s by an international finance crisis over the payment of “war debt” from World War I (reparations payments from Germany to the European Allies, and from the European Allies to the United States) -- something that, obviously, doesn't happen here.

China had suffered various invasions, plus a revolution and civil war in 1909. Since that time, it had been in a state of civil war almost constantly.

The last Emperor, a young boy named Pu-Yi, who had succeeded his dead Father under a regency at the age of 2, was the head of a government without any ability to project its will upon the provinces or the people. Provincial governors, or military generals, had set themselves up as warlords, controlling the lands of their regions with virtually complete authority to do as they wished.

That is not to say there were not influential people who wished to see China whole and strong again. Dr. Sun Yat-Sen had returned from the United States after the revolution was declared, and had attempted to form a democratic China. There were too many opposing powers and complications to make the plan feasible, but he did succeed in compiling a coalition of fellow travelers and an army to try to bring about his dream.

In 1919, Dr. Sun’s faction was based in Canton, just north of the Prussian holdings in China, and because Sun professed to wish China to be a westernized democracy, Kaiser Waldemar had ordered a fair amount of quiet support to be provided to him. In 1921, the United States and various other powers also contributed to Sun’s support through the Open Door Policy, which prevented exclusivity of trade in Chinese ports.

Increasing opportunism among Chinese warlords resulted in not two, but four alliances in China by 1920 – General Chang in Manchuria, General Chen in Shanghai, the General Feng in Peking (the child Emperor having fled into exile), and Dr. Sun in Canton with his ally General Chiang.

General Chiang Kai-Shek proved to be an able administrator and strategist, and he took over from Dr. Sun Yat-Sen when he died in 1925. By 1926 Chiang’s reach stretched north to Hangchow and Shanghai, basically bounded on the north by the Yang-Tse River.

By that time, however, Gen. Chiang and Dr. Sun had both begun to associate themselves with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Kaiser Waldemar ordered all collaboration with Chiang and his Kuomintang Party (KMT) to cease.

In 1927, Chiang began to violently disagree with the communists, and launched a purge that killed many of the leaders and their soldiers. The remnants of the CCP fled into the mountains near Canton. Waldemar, no longer trusting Chiang, refused to renew his ties.

anonymous4401 said:

It's a bit strange that a lot is still going along with the stream of history, with Mussolini, Chiang Kai-Shek, Sun Yat-sen, and Hitler all becoming prominent in similar ways with their historical counterparts. Even Coolidge gets elected around the right time?

Click to expand...

I guess my rule with this AAR has most often been -- "If there is no compelling reason to change it, then there is no compelling reason to change it!"

I did completely skip President Harding. Why have the ugly duckling two-timing short-timer when he can be replaced so easily with a hero like Calvin Coolidge?!

Rensslaer

Epilogue: Chapter 10​

Dictatorships and authoritarian states were not altogether unusual in Europe of the 20th Century. Many examples had been already seen in France during the 1800s, and these included Minister-President Louis Napoleon, and Minister-President Henri Pétain.

In 1921, King Antonio of Spain asked his Premier, Miguel Primo de Rivera, to rule by decree (with the King’s advice & consent, of course) and become Dictator of Spain. De Rivera did so, and thereby became the first of a new breed of dictator which would sweep over Europe. He was in power, at the grace of the King, until 1930.

Modern historians disagree, as they often do, but some consider de Rivera to have been the first fascist dictator, predating Mussolini – the founder of the true Fascist Party – by a few years.

Mussolini, naturally, was the second fascist dictator. Having become Premier of Sardinia in 1922, and increasing his power in stages until 1925, when he was given true dictatorial power, Mussolini gave fascism its name. To him, it was an ideology. To de Rivera, it had simply been an ad hoc means of governing. Nevertheless, the similarity between the two leaders’ style of rule was obvious, and the two regarded each other as fellow travelers and potential allies. In fact, it was the additional consideration of what Spain might do that kept German politicians from having full confidence when they considered intervention in Italy to “nip Mussolini in the bud.”

Compared to Mussolini, de Rivera was a dilettante dictator and fascist. In fact, the fact that de Rivera never seemed to excel is partly why he was forced to resign in 1930. But Mussolini’s example, from his Premiership in 1922 on, encouraged the formation of nascent fascist parties (or Nationalist Socialist, as in Germany) in virtually every nation of Europe. They began to gain power not so much because of economic conditions, which would not be a major factor until the 1930s, but because it was a populist philosophy, a nationalist philosophy, and a socialistic philosophy – each of which was attractive to a certain sector of every population.

In Portugal, the king had been assassinated in 1917, and his son was exiled after a military coup. In the years that followed, the government of the Portuguese Empire was characterized by disinterest, further coups, assassination, graft, and other forms of corruption.

Nevertheless, in 1923, Kaiser Waldemar was able to forge with the President a treaty, by which the long-running dispute of colonial claims in the Rift Valley of south-central Africa was resolved. Portugal retained the territory where it did have established settlements and reasonable claims.



Fort Niangara – the famous bulwark of the Prussian Empire against Portuguese expansion – was ceded to Portugal to crown her northern extent of settlement in Africa. However, Fort Mwanza, on the south shore of Lake Viktoria, was retained as proof against Portuguese adventures in the future.

Meanwhile, Portugal gave up its one remaining outpost – the Marshall Islands – in the Pacific Ocean, allowing Germany to lay uncontested claim to the new colony of Mikronesia.



In 1926, a cabal of military officers overthrew the elected government of Portugal once more, then began quibbling among themselves. In the end, General Antonio Carmona arrested his rival and established himself as the dictatorial President of Portugal. He immediately received the backing of Italy’s Benito Mussolini, aligned with Italy in foreign affairs, and followed fascist methods of government.

Until 1929, Kaiser Waldemar had only to fear fascism on his southern border – Italy – which was of no great concern by itself. But in March of that year an attempt by Waldemar and others to influence their international situation for the better backfired.

Minister Joseph Caillaux had long been a contact of the German intelligence service, selling inside information about whichever ministry he was a part of. But he was sufficiently radical in his expressed political beliefs to have survived the political purges which followed the socialist coup in 1927. As Minister of Finance, he was involved in most of the major dealings of the government, and was aware of the beliefs and habits of the ministers he served with. Caillaux was contracted to coordinate a military coup against the socialists, and was intended to take over as President once the deal was done.

On March 13, Caillaux was with the President, Guy Demargeaux, and his cabinet when military officers came to arrest them. Elsewhere, the military coup was being coordinated by Colonel Luc de Maigny, a veteran of the British War. The Socialists were removed from power, and Army officers who were loyal to the right took over.

Caillaux established a new governmental order, and newly appointed Marshal Maigny saw to the restoration of public order. Germany quickly offered their best wishes and any necessary assistance to the new government, which was seen to have removed a criminal regime and replaced it with a stable and friendly one.

But on April 7, Maigny suddenly had Caillaux arrested. He, Demargeaux, and the other ministers of the socialist cabinet were all executed. In Italy, Mussolini hailed the 2nd coup, assuring Maigny of his political and military support. Spain and Portugal did the same.

Instead of a friend, Kaiser Waldemar now found another adversary… of a yet more dangerous character.

Maigny, for his part, was as egotistical as Mussolini, and was as talented politically, though not as an administrator. What Maigny added to the fascist philosophy in France was a passionate hatred of Jews and non-white races. The rights of non-white Frenchmen were severely curtailed, and many prominent Jews were arrested and made political prisoners.

Some sectors of French society had a long tradition of anti-semitism, and many supported Maigny, especially as he blamed Jewish capitalists and financiers for the economic crisis which soon set in after the crash in America.

And, on top of all the countries ruled by fascists, there were others – Serbia, Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine – which were either greatly influenced by fascists, had large fascist opposition parties which could impact government policy, or had authoritarian governments of a pro-fascist character.

From these raw materials, Mussolini fashioned a concordat of fascist nations and followers-on. From Spain and Portugal, to France and Italy, they forged – like fasces – a strong pact of military arms and force of will. The faint of heart in Europe cowered, and made way for the new rival to the hegemony of Germany.



Even with more and increasing support in the Reichstag, Kaiser Waldemar could not muster the votes to support a large-scale pre-emptive war against this new threat, no matter how obvious it had become. Even had he been able, Germany would have been hard pressed to prosecute a war on two fronts while watching its back against a hostile Soviet Union at the same time. And the United States and United Kingdom could hardly be counted on for support against any enemy.

Waldemar, however, did have one victory of some significance in 1930.

In Spain, de Rivera had ruled badly, and acquired many enemies. When King Antonio and popular demonstrations in the streets both urged de Rivera’s removal, he resigned to exile in Italy.

The Fascist Pact made noises as if to intervene, but quick counteraction by Germany forestalled any action to replace the government of Spain with de Rivera or a man of similar – perhaps better – fascist character. Spain acquired a democracy, in which the socialists promptly took power, but despite the poor trade-off of France for Spain, this small victory provided hope to Waldemar, and emboldened the opponents of fascism.