North America : 1882

(click map to see enlarged version)

North America circa 1882.

Highlights :

--Britain, and its large dominion ally, The British Dominion of Windsor, control Canada, Newfoundland, the northern extent of the Great Plains, the upper mid west, and the Ohio Valley region, also dominating the Great Lakes.

-- Quebec, more heavily settled by France than in OTL, is a full fledged province of the French Empire.

-- The Confederation of New England gained independence from Britain in the 1760's and seized control of upstate New York from the Dutch over the next 50 years.

-- South of New England lie the two 'New Dutch' Republics of Pennsylvania and Dutchland, carved out of the former New Netherlands after the British and New England defeated France and the Netherlands in the 2nd North American War in the 1820's. The New Dutch still claim upstate New York where a restive ethnic Dutch population longs to rejoin their cousins to the South

-- South of the New Dutch Republics lie the isolated slave Republics of Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. All three left the British Dominion peacefully after the British demanded that they end the institution of slavery. Though isolated diplomatically, the export of Cotton has fueled their economy and Virginia has begun to industrialize. In Virginia, slavery was formally ended in 1881 but a legal system of enshrined racial segregation and codified white-rule is firmly established. In Carolina and Georgia, slavery lives on.

-- Florida, minus the panhandle, is a thinly populated swampland that no one much cares about. It is still a Spanish colony, mostly because no other power has taken an interest in it

-- Texas controls the southern Great Plains, Texas itself, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. But this is much different place than our Texas; It is heavily influenced culturally and ethnically by the French and Spanish, with the Anglo influence being in third place and distinctly the minority. Houston, named 'New Provence' in this timeline, is under the control of the Republic of Louisiana which also rules in Louisiana itself and Arkansas

-- North of Louisiana is the Cherokee nation, backed by the Republic of Louisiana and formed from out the Cherokee and other native American tribal groups who were pushed west by Virginia, Carolina, and Georgian settlers.

-- On the West Coast, the Republic of California gained independence from Mexico following the Gold Rush of the 1830's. It has a mixture of Spanish, British, French, and even Russian influence(in the northern parts). It controls California, eastern Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.

The British, who competed with the French for influence in northern California during the gold rush, control the port of San Francisco and some of the surrounding Bay Area.

-- North of California is New Russia, an independent Republic that broke from the Russian Empire after British settlers instigated a revolution in the 1840's. The region had been settled heavily by Russia in the late 1700's, and when the region later gained Independence the 'New Russia' name was kept to appease the substantial minority of ethnic Russians

New Russia consists of Washington and northwestern Oregon. The French have a substantial enclave on the northwestern Coast of Washington and the British control Seattle, Puget Sound, and Victoria island. Russia maintains control of Alaska and the western coast of Canada. A strip of territory in the Rocky Mountains sitting between the British Dominion of Windsor and the Pacific Coast Republics and Russian America is controlled by native America tribal nations.

-- To the South, Mexico exists largely within OTL's border except that the Yucatan peninsula is divided between two ethnic Mayan states. Central America and the Caribbean is divided between the British, French, and Dutch. In the northern part of South America, The Republic of Grand Columbia controls most of the region while Britain and France have colonies on the north coast. The northern part of the Empire of Brazil is also visible

A taste...

Excerpt from "The Time of the Five World Wars"

Pittsburgh Presses, Neo-Windsor, 2111 AD

May 21st, 1883

The streets of New Amsterdam thronged with masses of cheering people, and great unending streamers of ticker tape fell from the eight story skyscrapers lining Central avenue in downtown Manhattan. Ceaseless columns of soldiers paraded down the avenue, their polished boots stomping the pavement in unison as brass bands played triumphant national songs vigorously and the crowd roared with approval at the passing of each immaculate regiment.

It was a mixed throng of spectators, a hundred thousand and more common laborers and mill managers, shopkeeps and news boys, maids and wives, stock brokers and bankers, curious orientals pausing from their afternoon chores and blacks in from the wharves ; all of New Amsterdam was assembled, and the spirits of all New Dutch soared with them. For the heady thrill of War was in the air. ...

...In Europe, the mother Dutch and their French patrons were mobilizing for War in The Germanies, following a decade of insults and Prusso-British aggression. The assassination of the Dutch-speaking King of Holster and the subsequent Prussian invasion had been the final straw. The French could simply not ignore the provocation as the balance of power in The Germanies threatened to swing in favor of the British-Prussian alliance. As one power after another began to mobilize during the month of May the tightly sprung system of international alliances began to unwind - the countdown to war was like an unstoppable train, fueled by the confident eagerness of willing populations.

Nowhere was the nationalist fervor more passionate than among the New Dutch of Dutchland and Pennsylvania. After most of a century of humiliation at the hands of the British and New Englanders, the opportunity to restore the New Netherlands was an intoxicating dream, one stirred by the newspapers and New Dutch politicians without fail...

...across the Hudson, British artillery sat ready amidst fortifications in the Brooklyn heights. Tense crews sat awaiting the orders that could mark the outbreak of war and send high explosive shells arcing towards New Amsterdam, the largest city in North America. The British had no shortage of modern rifled artillery, and they had been lavish with the guns when outfitting Long Island's defenses.

Readily visible to the British artillerymen, the Entente Tower dominated New Amsterdam's skyline, the soaring French-designed iron monstrosity completed just a few years before to mark the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Liege that formalized the Entente between France, the Netherlands, and the new Dutch nations of Dutchland and Pennsylvania. A huge Dutchland flag rippled in the steady wind at the top of the tower...

...both sides had observation balloons high above the Hudson river, the balloons of the opposing armies intermingling so closely that the British artillerymen took bets on how long it would take for a couple of them to become entangled...

...Later historians would lament at the madness of these times; that across the globe people willingly, eagerly, marched into the death and darkness of the subsequent eighty years. After decades of buildup, the Time of the Five World Wars was at hand....

TO BE CONTINUED...

New timeline...

Launching this blog for a new timeline project I am starting on. This timeline story, similar to my Shattered World timeline, will describe five world wars that occur between the 1880's and the 1960's in an alternate history that diverged from our own in the late 17th century.

As with Shattered World, the story will be delivered in a serial format as a detailed timeline, with short pieces of narrative between some segments.