The Civil Wars
While National France was busying itself with Liberia, the American Civil War was dragging on. While the emergency military administration of the USA had made peace with the California-centric Pacific States of America, in exchange for recognising the territorial gains made by the Californians. This treaty effectively acted as
de facto recognition of PSA independence - in the process giving birth to what would become one of the most prosperous nations per capita on earth.
The rest of the USA was not so lucky. Militias and troops loyal to both the syndicalists, the old government and the Union State engaged in brutal and fluid conflict. With territory rapidly changing hands it was impossible for any one side to attempt to restore law and order for any period of time - not even in their core territory. This led to widespread anarchy throughout the continental United States and, with civilians unable to safely choose one side or another, combatants with all sides relied on naked and often barbaric force in order to ensure the obedience of civilians they encountered.
Complicating this situation further were the various unaligned militias and gangs roving the country, each with motives ranging from political ideologies (such as the anarchist cells) to racial prejudices (such as the White Power movements in the southern US) to the purely criminal (such as the mafia). The net result of all these factors was the theft and destruction of food supplies, leading to mass starvation, widespread and routine rape, the violent settling of grudges and frequent massacres of civilians by the hands of one armed group or another. The only part of the USA to entirely escape the carnage was the newly independent and Canadian backed Republic of New England. Overall, it is estimated that as many as two million people died in the Second American Civil War - the vast majority civilians.
It was in this complex and bloody situation that volunteers from National France arrived. Though not alone or especially numerous amongst the various foreign forces, both official and unofficial, that took part in the civil war, the French volunteers proved especially useful to the US army - both in the French speaking Cajun regions around New Orleans and in the northern states where they were to show exceptional single-minded brutality in dealing with anyone they considered
communards - especially any volunteers from the Commune of France.
But as far as the National French junta was concerned, the conflict in America was simply a distraction. Of far greater importance was Spain - which had just erupted into its own three-sided, brutal civil war.
Following the death of the King, the centuries old, catholic and monarchist Carlist movement - led by the pretender to the thrones of Spain and France, Xavier de Borbón-Parma - seized control of rural northern Spain and began a war to place Xavier on the throne of Spain. Within the space of only a few weeks, mutinies and strikes by soldiers and workers around Barcelona led to the proclamation of the Anarchist Federation of Iberia (FAI) by the syndicalist CNT-FAI - beginning proper the Spanish Civil War.
With Spain controlling African territories bordering National France, as well as the strategic port of Gibraltar, a hostile regime in Spain could prove fatal to any attempt to regain the French motherland.
After much deliberation, the Marshal's government decided to back the Carlists. Their promotion of traditional patriotic and Catholic values appealed to Pétain who had himself changed the motto of the Fourth Republic to
"Travail, famille, patrie" ("Work, family, fatherland").
And so the decision was made that National France would publicly back the Carlists. The volunteers and resources from National France, along with those from the Papacy, would prove vital to Carlist war efforts and are considered by many military historians to be the primary reason for the eventual Carlist triumph.
Meanwhile, in the east, political forces were building which would ultimately lead to the end of Russia as even a concept...