Southern Victory

For the alternate history concept of the C.S. successfully breaking away from the U.S., see American Civil War alternate histories.

Southern Victory

Author	Harry Turtledove
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Alternate history
Published	1997–2007 (1997–2007)

The Southern Victory series or Timeline-191 is a series of eleven alternate history novels by author Harry Turtledove, beginning with How Few Remain (1997) and published over a decade. The period addressed in the series begins during the Civil War and spans nine decades, up to the mid-1940s. In the series, the Confederate States defeats the United States of America in 1862, thereby making good its attempt at secession and becoming an independent nation. Subsequent books are built on imagining events based on this alternate timeline.

The secondary name is derived from General Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191, which detailed the C.S. Army of Northern Virginia's invasion of the Union through the border state Maryland in September 1862. Turtledove creates a divergence at September 10, 1862, when three Union soldiers do not find a copy of Special Order 191, as they in fact did historically. Historians believe their find helped General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac prepare for his confrontation with Lee, and contributed to the Union's eventual victory at the Battle of Antietam.

List of books in the series

The Southern Victory series consists of 11 books, published between 1997 and 2007. The first book in the series is How Few Remain, and the remaining 10 books are part of three sub-series within the overall series. These sub-series are The Great War (1998–2000) trilogy, The American Empire trilogy (2001–2003), and The Settling Accounts (2003–2007) tetralogy.

• How Few Remain (1997)
• The "Great War" Trilogy
  • American Front (1998)
  • Walk in Hell (1999)
  • Breakthroughs (2000)
• The "American Empire" Trilogy
  • Blood and Iron (2001)
  • The Center Cannot Hold (2002)
  • The Victorious Opposition (2003)
• The "Settling Accounts" Tetralogy
  • Return Engagement (2004)
  • Drive to the East (2005)
  • The Grapple (2006)
  • In at the Death (2007)

Fictional chronology

After recovering the lost copy of Special Order 191 before it falls into Union hands, Confederate forces catch George B. McClellan's Union Army by surprise and destroy it on the banks of the Susquehanna River in 1862. Occupying Philadelphia, the Confederacy gains diplomatic recognition from the United Kingdom and France, who mediate a peace deal by which the Confederacy achieves independence. President Abraham Lincoln considers his failure to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, along with the possibility of the U.S. finding its own European allies in the future.

The United States cannot afford Alaska, but proceeds with its war against the natives of the Great Plains. Meanwhile, the Confederacy admits Kentucky, Sequoyah, and Cuba as new states, and negotiates the purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexico in 1881. Republican President James G. Blaine uses this as a casus belli to declare a renewed war, drawing Britain and France back into the conflict. The Union, despite its advantage in manpower and resources, lacks competent leadership, and struggles to take Confederate territory while also facing a revolt in Utah. The Louisville campaign devolves into trench warfare, while Britain and France shell U.S. ports and New Brunswick annexes northern Maine. The Union capitulates in early 1882, recognizing the Confederate acquisitions, while the Republicans are soon voted out of government.

Over the rest of the decade, manumission of slaves is nominally implemented throughout the Confederacy -- easing relations with Britain and France, which had both abolished slavery much earlier -- although the black population continues to live in apartheid-like conditions. The U.S. secures an alliance with the new German Empire amid a national atmosphere of revanchism.

Great War

Map of the world with the participants in The Great War in the Southern Victory history. The "Entente" (sometimes referred to as "The Allies") are depicted in green, the "Central Powers" in orange, and neutral countries in grey.

Upon the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Britain, France, and Russia go to war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson order the U.S. and C.S. militaries to mobilize following their respective allies, and fighting soon breaks out. Industrialized warfare and the absence of European intervention favors the Union side, and much of the Confederate officer corps is made up of heirs of great 19th-century generals with no particular talent of their own. An invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania overruns Washington, D.C. but is unable to take Baltimore, while the Union launches attacks on Sonora and Canada, along with the capture of the British Sandwich Islands. As winter falls, a stalemate settles in across trench lines in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and the St. Lawrence River. The U.S. faces another rebellion in Utah and the C.S. a black socialist revolt, which take a year to subdue.

In 1916 a new technical advance is introduced: the "barrel". George Armstrong Custer develops a doctrine for armored cavalry, but his tactics are not adopted and the first offensive is a failure. The U.S. successfully advances in Canada and defends Hawaii in a large naval engagement; the C.S. hopes that attrition and war weariness might knock the U.S. out, but pro-war President Roosevelt wins reelection, and the Confederacy is forced to begin recruiting black troops with a promise of civil rights after the war. 1917 sees breakthroughs in Tennessee and Quebec using Custer's massed barrel tactics, while a simultaneous advance in Virginia recaptures a devastated Washington. With Union troops approaching its capital, the C.S. sues for peace. In Europe, army mutinies lead to France's exit from the war; Italy never enters it, while Russia is wracked by revolution. Brazil also joins the Central Powers along with Chile and Paraguay against Argentina, and increasingly isolated, Britain capitulates as well, ending the war.

American Empire

Jubilant at having finally beaten the Confederates, the U.S. soon encounters strikes and labor unrest, fueling political gains by the Socialist Party. The Confederacy experiences hyperinflation and a growth in reactionary extremism -- ex-sergeant Jake Featherston achieves popularity via his tirades against the "stab in the back". He comes to lead the C.S. Freedom Party, reorganizing it around his own ambitions with a loyal paramilitary wing and a radio propaganda program. However, Featherston loses several bids for office, and a Freedom Party assassination of the Confederate President drains much of his support until the crash of 1929. With the ranks of his party swelled by popular unrest, Featherston finally becomes President in 1934, and sets about establishing control over the government, the police force, and the expanding army. He demands the return of former Confederate territory in forms of Kentucky, Sequoyah and Houston; after negotiating for plebiscites to be held in those states, Kentucky and Houston vote for re-admittance whilst Sequoyah votes to remain part of the United States.

Elsewhere in the world, the Great War results in independence for Quebec and Ireland, as well as other concessions by Britain; Canada falls under harsh U.S. rule while Germany sets up puppet states in Belgium, Poland, and Ukraine. Tensions seem to be rising between the two powers until the depression hits. The Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman Empires remain intact but fragile; Japan builds an empire in east Asia and carries on a brief war with the U.S. When France demands the return of Alsace-Lorraine and the new Kaiser refuses, Britain, France, Russia, and the Confederacy declare war on Germany. On June 22, 1941, Featherston launches his surprise invasion of the U.S.

Settling Accounts

World map showing participants in the "Second Great War". The Entente are depicted in brown, the C.S. in red, the Central Powers in blue, the Japanese Empire in yellow, the Chinese Empire in green, and neutral countries in grey.

Against Union expectations, Confederate forces under George Patton drive into Ohio under cover of massive bombing raids, cutting U.S. industry off from its raw materials, but the front soon stalls there and in Virginia. The U.S. Navy suffers reverses against the Royal Navy and Imperial Japanese Navy. However, despite its President's death in a bombing raid, the U.S. does not surrender. In response, the Confederacy launches a major offensive aimed at Pittsburgh, where its army is surrounded and annihilated in urban fighting. Meanwhile, the Confederacy begins "population reductions" against its black population, using poison gas at camps in Louisiana and Texas, which are forced to evacuate as Union troops advance. Using blitzkrieg-like tactics, the U.S. Army is also able to push through Kentucky and Tennessee toward Atlanta.

In Europe, the Germans lose Ukraine and the Left Bank of the Rhine, but defend East Prussia and Poland. Britain occupies Ireland, but its Norwegian campaign fails spectacularly. Backed by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, Germany begins counter-offensives in 1942. With both Russia and Austria-Hungary facing ethnic uprisings, the German Army is able to win at Kiev and threaten Petrograd, as well as retake the Low Countries. Having won the race for a nuclear weapon, Germany destroys Petrograd with an atomic bomb; as more belligerents acquire the technology, the list of cities targeted grows to include Philadelphia, Newport News, Charleston, Paris, Hamburg, London, Norwich, and Brighton. Russia, France, and Britain sue for peace.

With Texas seceding, Patton surrendering in Alabama, and Featherston shot while trying to escape, the Confederacy surrenders unconditionally. U.S. forces hold trials for crimes against humanity and take extreme measures against the remaining bands of guerrillas, while generally aided by the scattered remaining black population. In 1945, new President Thomas E. Dewey pledges to reintegrate the southern states into the Union and to continue the alliance with Germany, while suppressing the development of nuclear weapons by their enemies France, Japan, and Russia.

See also

• Second Mexican War (Southern Victory)
• American Civil War alternate histories
• The Guns of the South, another Harry Turtledove-written novel dealing with a C.S. victory

External links

• The Great War page, maintained by Steven H Silver.