Sequel de Mayo (Cinco de Mayo, Vol. II)
- Thread starter KingSweden24
- Start date
The current POTCS is Ellison Smith. Hoke Smith is SecState and is definitely eligible.
ESPECIALLY with the war effort in shambles. "We must stand united now in the face of this blatant Yankee aggression. To waiver in this moment, to give in to the cowardly urge of factionalization, is to invite disaster, my friends. There is no time for the luxury of recrimination, for the barbarians themselves are at our gates. And let me promise you, sir, the Yankee will not care which party you belong too - he lives only to see the blood of Southrons spilled, to see Southron women defiled, to let loose uncivilized racial warfare upon our fair people. If we are to weather this storm, we must be united!"
(Hopefully this post will come off as a commentary *on* racism rather than racist)
iOTL, the current "Basket Case" among large countries that would have been viewed as White by a 19th century Briton is Russia (yes, there a few slightly below like Romania, Belarus and Serbia) with a an HDI of .822 . All of the countries that are above it in HDI fall into a few categories. European (I'm including Cyprus here), Significant Oil Producers (Arabian States & Brunei), European Settler States (British Settler States, the southern cone, etc), South Africa and Israel (whether *those* belong in the previous category is definitely for the politics thread, not here). I think some of that may be that Europeans would view a white person from Confederacy as someone they can trade with, without looking down on them as an (insert Black person stereotype here) or (insert East Asian Stereotype here).
While the CSA *will* be dealing with the equivalent of Post WWII Russia rebuilding *and* some of the Pariah State situation that South Africa had iOTL, the question is how much can they be *pushed* down below modern Russia.
Or to put it another way, where would a1920s/1930s British businessman iTTL rather buy/build a factory: Charlotte, North Carolina or Port Au Prince Haiti. As long as the answer is Charlotte, the CSA will have a higher HDI than Haiti. (Note, if the choice is Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Charlotte, North Carolina or Port Au Prince, Haiti, the answer may well be Tampico, but the question isn't how *high* the Mexican HDI can go, it is how low the CSA HDI can go)
iOTL, the current "Basket Case" among large countries that would have been viewed as White by a 19th century Briton is Russia (yes, there a few slightly below like Romania, Belarus and Serbia) with a an HDI of .822 . All of the countries that are above it in HDI fall into a few categories. European (I'm including Cyprus here), Significant Oil Producers (Arabian States & Brunei), European Settler States (British Settler States, the southern cone, etc), South Africa and Israel (whether *those* belong in the previous category is definitely for the politics thread, not here). I think some of that may be that Europeans would view a white person from Confederacy as someone they can trade with, without looking down on them as an (insert Black person stereotype here) or (insert East Asian Stereotype here).
While the CSA *will* be dealing with the equivalent of Post WWII Russia rebuilding *and* some of the Pariah State situation that South Africa had iOTL, the question is how much can they be *pushed* down below modern Russia.
Or to put it another way, where would a1920s/1930s British businessman iTTL rather buy/build a factory: Charlotte, North Carolina or Port Au Prince Haiti. As long as the answer is Charlotte, the CSA will have a higher HDI than Haiti. (Note, if the choice is Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, Charlotte, North Carolina or Port Au Prince, Haiti, the answer may well be Tampico, but the question isn't how *high* the Mexican HDI can go, it is how low the CSA HDI can go)
Very true.
Not quite that single-party, but de facto it'll be close.
It's a weird hybrid of the worst of both worlds of both Presidentialism and Parliamentarianism. Not coincidentally, we can see how these things sometimes go in countries like Chile, where in the early 1890s OTL the Congress and the President fought a civil war against each other, and that was basically the entirety of the factionalism.
The ratio will in the end be relatively similar to prewar, maybe slightly whiter with some decamped Black Confederates to the US, Texas (which will be in need of cheap labor it can treat as second-class) or Mexico.
The other thing is that calculating demographics is a very tricky business (the 1920 census in the Confederacy... yeah no clue how I'm going to navigate that lol) but this is broadly true. It's also the case, as you allude, that without being internal migrations the Great Migration of the former agrarian slaves is going to be much more limited. The numbers you throw around here seem a bit low to me but the welcoming open arms of the US to mass immigration are going to slam shut pretty quick once the postwar depression really starts to set in. Its grim stuff.
Thank you!
Why I've had to refer to them as first AND last name every time I write them lol
This is a good point.
HDI and GDP are of course different things - my thinking is that Mexico has a slightly higher HDI and a much higher GDP per capita than the CSA when all is said and done, probably an 0.8 and 28k per cap vs, say. 0.75ish and 19k per cap, but the spread between the former is much narrower than the spread between the latter. In the long run, Mexico is basically gonna get to the point where the North of the country basically all looks like OTL Monterrey; Monterrey, CDMX and the rest of the Bajio all look like Spain; and Oaxaca/Chiapas is still, well, Oaxaca and Chiapas, just not as cripplingly impoverished and probably where internally factories are getting moved within Mexico to take advantage of lower labor costs than in Guanajuato, Queretaro or Guadalajara.
All I'm going to say is that this really doesn't seem to square at all with what is being set up in the Kentucky-centric updates. Agree to disagree I guess, and we'll see how things shake out soon enough.
Changing gears, the wikibox for the Battle if Nashville surprised me with how many Mexican casualties are listed; based on those numbers, Mexico has to have at least 120k or so troops in the theater, way more than I had previously thought. So then, the question I have for @KingSweden24 : Is Mexico fielding more troops east of the Mississippi than it is in the closer-to-home fronts? If they are (or if the numbers are anywhere close to equal) then that will certainly give them even more motivation to try and find an exit strategy than they already have. And if Mexico demands to have those troops transferred back home, things will get very awkward very quickly between them and the CSA.
I’d say the split for the Mexicans between its fronts, this deep into mobilization, is probably closer to 3:2 or even 2:1 between west and east of the Miss.
That’s still enough men on Confederate soil to make one wonder why on earth the Mexicans are helping fight for a country that is rapidly losing
There is a portion of Mexico you haven't mentioned, Yucatan. I know that Mexico being richer makes a difference, but what happened to the areas that had the Caste War iTTL? Are the people of Maya descent *that* much more assimilated iTTL? (And yes, I know you've basically gotten to the time period when the Caste War was dying off and it might require some retconning.
IMO, Yucatan is likely to be the poorest area of Mexico *until* at least you get to the point in history where the US Tourists are joining Mexican ones in Cancun...
Agreed - and until oil is struck in Campeche, which otl occurred in the 70s
That’s probably pretty fair, calculating these things ain’t my strong suit lol
You know it probably would make sense for Mexican troops to be the ones helping local Texan troops rather than ones from the rest of the Confederacy. So Texas may be more grateful to Mexico City than Richmond.
The closest that I can think of where a country tried to peace out while its troops were integrated with a country staying in the fight is Italy and the minor axis allies *trying* to abandon the Nazis. Thailand didn't have its troops integrated with the Japanese in WWII. While Russia peaced out, I don't think they were integrated with the rest of the Entente anywhere.
The other possibility in the 20th century would be the US disengaging from South Vietnam, though that doesn't seem similar either.
Prior to *that*, my guess is that you'd be looking at something in the Napoleonic Wars, Confederation of the Rhine abandoning Napoleon during the Sixth Coalition?
You know it probably would make sense for Mexican troops to be the ones helping local Texan troops rather than ones from the rest of the Confederacy. So Texas may be more grateful to Mexico City than Richmond.
What I’m gleaming from this is that I’m not maximizing max pandemonium (or at least I have the opportunity to) in this equation..:
Almost certainly, at least for the latter. Mississippi will probably be somewhere similar to OTL Costa Rica, maybe a bit worse. Not quite Nicaragua levels but pretty bad.
There’s a reason why GDP per capita is not always the most reliable indicator - on paper, Mississippi and the UK have similar GDP per capita (the former May even be slightly higher).
Now, I have not been to Britain, and I have studiously avoided going to MS my whole life, so I am not speaking of first hand experience but it seems quite plain that the UK’s standard of living is incomparably higher than the state everybody else in the South makes fun of
I mean it still does make sense, the more the CSA can be preserved the more it acts as a speed bump to the USA, given after this with them no longer distracted by the CSA Mexico is their biggest rival.
Sure it may really matter much, but it can be justified in the keeping influence or rather making sure the USA can't just create a total puppet state.
Well, the TL's main character *is* named Max.
And oddly, somehow the thought of the withdrawl of the Mexicans reminded me of "A Canticle for Leibowitz".
As I see it there are three scenarios.
1) Keep defending the Confederates. Advantages, keeps the US focused *mostly* on the CSA. Disadvantages, explaining to the Soldiers why they are dying so far from home when Sonora/Chihuahua are occupied by Americans.
2) Withdraw to Mexico and keep fighting. Advantages, likely to be able to retake Sonora/Chihuahuha, but will face the US exclusively when the Confederates do fall (though the entire question of whether the US will need more troops *fighting* the Confederacy or *occupying* the Confederacy is interesting.
3) Peace out. Advantages. No more Mexicans dying. Disadvantages, gives the US the time to finish off the Confederacy, the question is whether the Confederacy is too much for the US to control and whether the US will *always* have the CSA as an enemy they have to keep large numbers of troops to keep an eye on.
I'm actually expecting #3 pretty soon, especially with the Mexican *internal* pressures.