Southern Cross: The Confederate States in World War II

Nah, normal setup with the US troop levels and all and the two nations have pretty positive relations. The mod's premise is a peaceful coexistence between the two nations.

My chief of staff is William Sidney Graves who has the 25% manpower bonus, and I'm catching up with all the 1936 agri tech, so overall manpower growth is around 0.5 a day if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks for stopping by.

November 20, 1936

Chief of the Confederate General Staff General William Sidney Graves looked up from the latest reports detailing General Ricketts' recommendations for senior officers in the rapidly forming 5'th Division and stretched his neck, working out a crick he had acquired in the long hours he had been poring over the newest dispatches and reports moving through his office. He had an appointment with the President in the morning and wanted to be able to give him comprehensive information on the progress of all the projects they had in the works. He noted with satisfaction that the last of the existing divisions had been reequipped with the new infantry kits manufactured at Fort Benning and was further pleased by the progress of the recently raised 4'th Division. General Ricketts, Graves' choice for command for the forming Army of Western Mississippi had been putting his command through some rigorous exercises, well within the paltry budget that Congress would allot for such things but still effective for building unit cohesion and trust if nothing else. It also looked like the Expeditionary Force down in Hermosillo would be seeing new equipment soon as well, and that would certainly placate old Georgie Patton....for a while, at least.

Leaning back in the high backed leather chair, Graves' gaze swept around the large but somewhat spartan office, a bookcase stocked mainly with Confederate issued war textbooks and manuals, but with a few choices of Graves' own taste mixed in. Photographs of a virtual lifetime in the military, Mexico in 1911 chasing bandits and guerillas, the front in France in 1915 against the mighty Hun, Archangelsk in 1918 commanding the Confederate Battalion against the Red militias in a vain attempt to keep Russia from chaos, Cuba in 1925 against Communist rebels, all mementos of a life spent in hard service for his country. Two windows dominated another wall, giving the General a pleasant enough view of Constitution Avenue. The steady din of midday traffic was muted by the glass to an acceptable dull hum.

A gentle knock snapped Graves from his reverie and he leaned forward as he spoke.

"Enter."

Graves' adjutant, Colonel William Moseby entered the General's office and stepped across the floor, offering a quick salute before passing a sealed envelope to Graves.

"This just came in from General Smith's section sir. Thought you'd like to have it as soon as possible."

Graves nodded his thanks and inclined his head quickly, indicating the younger officer should sit while Graves read the message. Opening the envelope deftly he withdrew the single sheet and unfolded it, reading quickly.

"Well. Looks like Smith's exterminators found a rat after all."

"Oh?" Mosely's interest perked at the news.

"A German."



The colonel was unable to keep surprise from his voice.

"German?"

"By all acounts almost assuredly. Smith was a little short on the operational details, but apparently the man he had set this little outfit up drew the German out in Mobile, used a university kid to offer him bait of some sort, then put him out of the way."

"A college kid?" Mosely snorted in disbelief. "That sounds a little contrived."

"It does at that, but I suppose spies have been caught in stupider ways before."

"Is there any way we know for sure he's working actively for Germany? Not some disaffected Sparticist from Russia or Mexico?"

"They followed up at the fellow's apartment and shop, apaprently he even ran some little dry goods store, used to ship in stuff from the Fatherland all the time. Locals thought it was just the wide vareity of sausages. Turns out it was radio equipment and a dozen Mauser rifles."

"Rifles?" Mosely whistled sharply. "Someone was definitely asleep at the switch on that one."

"You tell that to the Customs Bureau, and see if you can get out of there with your head still attached. Any idea how many ships, trains, trucks, or planes come through this country on any given day?"

"Probably more than I think."

"Probably so. Point is, we're gonna tighten up on this, but we can't make a big fuss or people will notice and start asking questions, and then we have a much bigger problem on our hands tha a dozen rifles and a radio."

"I see your point. Still, what good does getting 12 rifles into the country do. Where could he find 12 poeple willing enough to - well, I suppose there are always the Black militias, but-"

"That's right." Graves interrupted, "there are always the Black militias. Thank God this country has never seen a full scale uprising, and I'll admit that manumission has done more good than harm, but I guarantee there are 12 blacks who would gladly take those rifles and join the bushwhackers hiding out in the swamps and woodlands from Arkansas to Georgia. More than likely Mr. German Agent already had 12 in mind. That'll be the next step though I expect."

Mosely simply nodded and Graves knew his words had had the usual effect they did in the Confederacy, stony silence. It was a problem that people simply didn't want to admit existed, but it was there nonetheless. While nothing like a full revolt or rebellion, it was common knowledge that to go out in the distant wilds alone or in small groups was to borrow more trouble than you could usually handle. Searches and repisals usually accomplished little as the attackers simply blended into the countryside and waited until the search would grudgingly be called off. Despite everyting, even inculding the Veteran Voting Act of 1919 which gave the vote to all blacks who had enlisted for service in the then recently concluded Great War, some of the Confederacy's blacks still listened to the siren call of resistance and full freedom. Graves knew in his heart of hearts, in thoughts he would most likely never voice aloud, that he couldn't blame them for that.

Shaking his head to break the self imposed spell, he collected all the relevant documents and passed them over to Mosely who had sensed his general's change of mood and stood.

"Get these all typed up and ready for the President. He's got his eyes on the new industrial plants and the Mexican situation, he's not gonna like hearing anything about Germany yet. Nevertheless, he needs to know it."

Standing himself, Graves returned Mosely's nod and crossed to the window, watching traffic idly wind by.

"After all," he murmured, "it's always been the Army's job to deliver the bad news."

HJ Tulp - Thanks for the compliment, glad you're enjoying it.

JimboIX - Aaah, a crossover fan. Welcome sir. Indeed I think guiding the CSA through the war will definitely be a fun ride if nothing else.

KanaX - Much appreciated, hope you like.

Specialist290 - Welcome aboard!

Specialist290 - Different kid, just poking some fun at myself on that one.

As for race relations, whenever writing anything with a surviving CSA, it's an issue you're gonna have to address one way or another. With the premise I've developed, peaceful coexistence with some undercurrents of rivalry between the CSA and USA, it didn't seem right to explain away slavery eqally as "neatly". It's an issue I'd like to come back to at some point in the story.

JimboIX - Right? Don't they have enough to worry about in Europe?

KanaX - I guess the Confederates were real formidable opponents in the last go round.

rcduggan - Thanks, yeah, I think we all agree the German minister of intelligence is fired.

GhostWriter - Thank you much, glad you decided to stop by.

TheExecuter - No plans for blueprint theft, the naval bombers I got from the USA were actually through a 'leading scientist defects' event that I sorta changed around in narrative form.

Update hopefully today, if not then tomorrow. Working in a restaurant sucks.

December 24, 1936

General George S. Patton clamped his mouth shut as he stalked across his office in the ramshackle headquarters of the Confederate Expeditionary Force in Hermosillo, Mexico. His grip on the telephone tightened to the point of danger for the receiver as the volatile general struggled to rein in his legendary temper. The hisses and crackes and pops on the transcontinental line connecting him to Richmond were further annoyances in what was to Patton already a highly infuriating situation.

"Well of course I know there's a goddamn depression on Sidney, but what the hell are we building dams and factories and god knows what all else for if not to get the country back on its' feet. You and I both know these Watie tanks aren't the greatest, but they're a damn sight better than goddamn trucks with 'tank' painted on the side. What are we supposed to do, chuck rocks at the enemy?"

The voice of Confederate Chief of Staff William Sidney Graves was distant but no less audible for the vagarities of transcontinental communication.

"If I've told you once George, I've told you a hundred times. Scratch that, I know I've told you a hundred times. The President isn't going to go for it. Congress wouldn't approve it if he did. And you can bet anything you cared to lose that Jouett will never authorize something as crazy as a whole division of tanks. It's just not going to happen. Maybe if we had someone knocking on the door-"

"Mexico." Patton's interruption was sharp and to the point. "You and I both know they won't just let us sit on Hermosillo forver, no matter how many of their 'irregulars' we killed or captured when we rolled south in '34. Sooner or later, that Cardenas is gonna finally get into bed with the Communists and when he does we're gonna have a war on the southern border and four damn divisions to cover the whole country."

"Six. You're forgetting about-"

"I know, Ricketts and his new army in Louisiana. Fat lot of good it does us out here."

"George," Graves' voice took on the tone of forebearance he so often had to use when dealing with George Patton, "by all acoounts Cardenas is having enough trouble keeping his head on his shoulders and keeping everybody in his little junta happy, nevermind coming north for a fight he's got to know he can't win. You go out in public and say we need tanks to beat Mexicans, you're out of a job in a week."

"Hell Sidney I know that, we could whip those lousy Mexicans with what we've got now if we had to or I'm in the wrong army. I'm just looking towards the future, you know that. One old soldier to another Sid, the Germans-"

"Are on the other side of the goddamn Atlantic Georgie, and I'll thank you to remember it. Look, I know what you're playing at here, you want an independent armored force, like we set up in France during the War and you want to command it. Well and good Georgie, a man's got to have ambition, but for one I would've thought you'd covered yourself in enough laurels already, and for another, if you go around saying anything that even sounds like we're going to go to war with Germany, you might as well resign now. Country doesn't want to hear it, President Long damn sure doesn't want to hear it. End of discussion. No tanks, at least not now. No new exercises either. I already had the Quartermaasters in here bitching at me earlier today. Is that understood?"

Patton's gaze, had he possesed the ability, would have crossed two thousand miles and struck a very senior officer of the Confederate Army dead instantly. Fighting back another surge of anger he opened his mouth and gave the only answer he could, the only answer he hated most to give.

"Yes sir."

"Good," Having won his point, Graves was magnimanious in victory. "Keep a lid on everything down there, and have a merry Christmas George."

"You too sir."

The call ended none too soon for Patton, who growled and stalked across his rather spare office to his desk, wrenching a drawer open forcefully and finding a cigar which he quickly lit and got burning in short angry puffs. Grey smoke quickly filled the room and Patton crossed to open a window, letting a slight breeze into the space and clearing it of some of the haze. He sighed as he regarded the spare Mexican landscape and watched another year tick away. Another year stuck in a pissant litlle town in a pissant province in a backwards neighbor nation that had even in the best of times never had any reason to love the CSA, but now had an active reason to hate their northern neighbors.

Not that Patton thought his presence in the province was unnecessary. Well, he amended, the Army's presence was necessary. His particular presence, however could be of much more use elsewhere, in his opinion. Looking back over the two odd years of the occupation, Patton could, in times of levelheadedness, realize he had done a lot of good. Ejecting the leftist guerillas and workers councils and restoring some semblance of public order, even if foreign imposed, had won him friends in Hermosillo and even in some of the other northern Mexican states who had long been drifting further from the orbit of Mexico City. The division he had been entrusted with, the 1'st 'Stuart' Cavalry Division had lived up to its' namesake, moving fast and striking hard. The desert had allowed Patton to test some of his theories of a new type of warfare in suitable conditions, lots of open space and precious little of value to damage. Seeing the men who had rode south on horses now travel using trucks, jeeps, and halftracks pleased the general as well. Still, he felt as if he was wasted this far from Richmond. Too far away from the currents of Army life to have any impact on the future of the force he held so dear to his heart. He supposed that if he saw a horizon free of stormclouds he could perhaps allow himself to rest here, fulfill one of his last assignments before a hero's retirement. Sidney was right on one count, he had won enough laurels in his career to suit all but the Alexanders of the military world. But he saw, with a warrior's intuition he had honed all his life that his nation would not long be at peace, not if she was to defend the values for which she had already shed so much blood in her less than a hundred years.

"Germany." The one word carried great weight for Patton, equal parts admiration that one skilled craftsman has for another, and revulsion, forged in the fires of the Continent and the Great War which had dominated Patton's life from the time he set foot in France in 1915 till the day Germany surrendered in 1919. Even then, he had known that for all the promises and goodwill, the Allies would not be able to break Germany's power or ambition permanently, not without themselves becoming what they had fought against. The news from Europe, coming in muted tones though it was, was to Patton merely the stirring of a waking beast of war, a beast which unchecked, may very well conquer the second time what it had merely wounded the first.

Stabbing the cigar butt into the ashtray close at hand, Patton closed the window and took another look over the preliminary schematics he had drawn up for a new kind of tank, faster, better protected, and packing a 20 mm cannon instead of just a heavy machine gun. His superiors had told him, in no uncertain terms, what they thought of his tank designs and his ideas both. Surrender, however, was not a word that had ever found its' way into George Patton's vocabulary.

"Hell with 'em all. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king...and the bastards will see who's right yet."




General George Patton outside Hermosillo, 1936