English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline

[Gabingston]

Hello, readers. By this point in time, I’ve been working on EC/FC for nearly four years, and have covered a period of time stretching from the POD in 1628 all the way up into the middle of the 20th Century. It has truly been a wonderful journey with you all, and I already look fondly upon the memories of being up late at night plugging away on this project. With that said, I’ve got a few things to go over when it comes to the future of this TL…
First, I’ve got a bit of writer’s block right now. I just don’t know what I want to cover on my next update(s). The latter half of the 20th Century up to the present just seems like a rather boring time to write about. The period after the Second World War IOTL has been called The Long Peace, as there have been no wars between major industrialized countries since then and the world has become more interconnected and interdependent, whether that lasts is anyone’s question.
Now, there’s no reason for TTL’s world from 1945 to the present to resemble our own, but my perceptions of what is plausible for this world are obviously shaped by what happened in our own. As a result, something like, say, a continent-wide war in Europe after 1950 seems like a completely foreign concept to me, since there hasn’t been a continent-wide European war in our world since World War Two. With this in mind, I don’t know if I even want to bring the written timeline to the present day. With how many areas of the world I have to cover, it’d probably take at least another year at my current pace, maybe two, to reach the present day. I’ve thought of doing a few updates covering each region of the world, giving a summary on what happens between the Mid 20th Century and the present, so I could then get on to the Maps & Graphics adaptation, where I’ll fill in more of the lore for the latter half of the 20th Century and the first two decades of the 21st.
Speaking of lore, I’ll be honest with you guys, there are significant pieces of this timeline’s canon that I don’t particularly like, and would want to alter in a Maps & Graphics TL. For example, the Second Global War (1911-1916) really doesn’t set up well for the rest of the timeline. In the written timeline, TTL’s Central Powers (Prussia, Austro-Bavaria, Britain and The Ottomans, with a few smaller countries as well) score a clear and obvious victory over TTL’s Entente (France, Russia, Spain, the two major Italian states and most of the Balkans), even capturing Paris at the end of the war. However, a one-sided humiliation like this does not bode well for a peaceful European future. With France and Russia feeling bitter and vengeful, another war seems quite likely. A third war is certainly possible, but part of me really wants to change the outcome of the Second Global War (and possibly the first if I revisit it and take issue with it). I’d probably end up changing it to where, while still a Central Powers victory, the war would be much more closely fought, thus making the peace treaty less of a one-sided affair. It might be like the Congress of Vienna IOTL, which while still nerfing France from what it was under Napoleon, wasn’t entirely one-sided like the Treaty of Versailles after OTL’s WW! and set the foundation for a mostly peaceful Europe for a century to come. In the end, I might leave the question of whether Europe has another large-scale war ITTL to a vote, even if it would be an asspull (keyword: might, I’m still undecided on that one).
On the topic of revisions, I’ve thought of revising sizable sections of the map once I get to the Maps & Graphics sequel. Spoiler alert, the biggest change will be getting rid of the Danish and Swedish colonies in New Zealand. Sorry to the guy who suggested it, assuming he’s still reading it, but I don’t find it realistic enough to implement. Granted, my idea to replace it with a German New Zealand isn’t much more realistic (if New Zealand hadn’t been colonized by the British IOTL, it probably would’ve been the French or Dutch), but I’ve had this idea floating around my head for a while, and I want to work with it. In return, I will have the Kalmar Union colonize New Zealand in Union of The Three Crowns, my other timeline I started a few months ago, although that’s a while down the line. Other areas that would see changes would include Australia (namely restricting Portuguese Australia to just OTL’s Northern Territory and Kimberly) and South America (making Patagonia smaller and La Plata larger) and maybe even parts of Europe and Asia, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
I’d like to hear your feedback on this post and hear some ideas from you guys as to where this timeline should go. I’ll get back to writing the timeline as soon as I get over writer’s block, and EC/FC will reach its conclusion in the near future. I’ll also work on my other timeline that I linked to in the previous paragraph, which I highly recommend checking out if you haven’t. I know I’ve done a lot of these writer’s posts lately, but this timeline is at a crossroads, and I’m not quite sure which path to take, so your feedback would be greatly appreciated. I’ll get a new update out hopefully within this month, but for now, I must bid you all adieu.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 132: The Bear Awakens​

Russia between the start of the Second Global War in 1911 and the 1932 elections, Russia was a complete and total mess. First they got their teeth kicked in by the Germans in the war itself, then they fell into their own highly destructive civil war and finally had an unstable beginning as a Republic. Now the 1932 elections had passed, and no party had a majority in the Council of the Republic. The two largest parties were the Revolutionary Republican Party, the left-wing, secularist party that was the most popular in major cities and the Russian Popular Party, a populist party that was strongest among the peasantry and in rural areas. Others included the Liberal Party, who were pro-Republic but more moderate than the RRP, the Conservatives, who were devoutly religious and held Monarchist sympathies and various parties representing ethnic minorities like Jews, Tatars and Kalmyks.
With the divided Council, the different parties and factions within Russian politics would have to bite the bullet and try to compromise. I already touched on this a bit in my last update on Russia, but many of the most radical elements of the early years of the Republic were toned down, such as the anti-clericalism of the RRP government from 1928-1932. However, the Republic still represented a large break with Russia’s past. For example, the capital was moved away from the old Tsarist capital of St. Petersburg. While there was initially discussion of moving the capital to somewhere in Siberia (likely Omsk or Obgorod), they decided instead to move it back to Moscow, which despite having been the old Muscovite capital held some significance to the Republic (go back to Part 80 for a refresher). Even with the capital staying in Europe, developing Siberia was a major priority for the Republic. State-owned and public-private enterprises conducted resource exploration in the vast Siberian steppe, taiga and tundra, finding abundant deposits of minerals and fossil fuels. New infrastructure like railways, roads and airstrips were built into the wilderness to access these deposits, and new towns were established to house the workers and their families. While most of the Russian population would remain concentrated west of the Urals in Europe, many did pack up and move out to Siberia, which would grow considerably in population over the middle of the 20th Century. Due to the increasing urbanization and industrialization, Russia began to undergo the demographic transition, with the Fertility Rate declining by 50% between 1930 and 1960. Due to the high starting point, though, the average Russian woman was still having three kids in 1960, lower in the cities and higher in the countryside. This would mean that the country would experience population growth throughout the remainder of the 20th Century.
After Russia sorted out her internal issues, Russia began to throw her weight around on the geopolitical stage once again. After Russia became more hospitable towards the Orthodox Church, the Slavic Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe began to drift into the Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine, for example, had elected for a Republican form of government after gaining independence, and upon the Republican victory in the civil war, became more pro-Russian (remember, there is no Holodomor to make Ukrainians permanently resentful of Russia). Russia, in turn, decided to abandon the more revanchist aims of reconquering Ukraine (unlike IOTL) and instead went for incorporating the country into their economic and political sphere. A formal treaty to establish economic and political cooperation was signed in the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Thus, the Odessa Pact was born. Over the next decade or so, this was expanded to other Orthodox European countries like Dacia, Bulgaria, Greece and Illyria. Russia still wanted more of Europe to fall into their sphere of influence (namely Poland, Baltia and Estonia), but that would entail a direct conflict with the Germans, something Russia was not ready for, so they would bite their tongue for the time being. Russia also expanded her diplomatic reach in Asia, influencing her former territory of Turkestan and hosting the peace treaty for the Sino-Japanese War. While the Russians didn’t have the reach they’d had in the Czarist times, they were slowly but surely building up their own sphere of influence and returning to great power status.
One of the big beneficiaries of the Russian Republic were Russia’s Jews. They had been heavily persecuted during the Czarist times, being restricted to the Pale of Settlement in the far west of the empire and often being the targets of pogroms. Many Jews within the Russian Empire had emigrated, with the largest recipient being the Commonwealth of America, which now had the world’s largest Jewish population. However, the new republic was much friendlier to Russia’s Jews. The Pale of Settlement was abolished (although most of it now lay in the independent Poland, Ukraine and Baltia) and full freedom of religion was established, which allowed Jews much more breathing room. With the restrictions on settlement gone, Jews began to move out of the former pale to destinations across the country, setting up their own enclaves within major cities as far away as Vladivostok. With them being allowed to run for political office, Jewish politicians began to be elected to the Council of the Republic, with some becoming quite high-profile. What party Jews voted for largely depended on their level of religiosity, Secular and Reform Jews were a solid RRP bloc, while Orthodox Jews largely stuck to their own parties and candidates, being numerous enough to get a few into the council.
After a rocky two decades in the 1910s and 1920s, things were starting to improve in Russia. Things were getting done, the standard of living was beginning to rise and Russia’s geopolitical influence was beginning to grow again. After a lengthy slumber, the bear was awakening and ready to throw its weight around. There will be more to get to with Russia, but that’ll be a story for another day.

 

[Gabingston]

I've officially opened the planning thread for a future Maps & Graphics adaptation of this timeline. I'll post some ideas I have for the Maps & Graphics TL soon. Just letting you all know that this thread is here.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ec-fc-maps-graphics-planning-thread.531846/

 

[Gabingston]

Part 133: The End of The Ottomans 1/2​

By the middle of the 20th Century, the Ottoman Empire was a shell of its former self. The slow but steady decline it had been in since at least 1683 came to a head after their devastating defeat in the Great Balkan War of the 1940s. Not only had they lost all of the territory they had regained during the Second Global War 30 years prior, but they’d even lost their capital city of Constantinople, which became an independent city-state spanning both the European and Asian sides of the Bosporus Strait. They also lost Iraq and Kurdistan, the former of which had much of the oil that the empire had possessed before the war.
To say that this was humiliating would be an understatement. Losing the City of the World’s Desire, which had been theirs for nearly four centuries, was a crushing blow to the empire’s morale and stability, not to mention all of the other land they’d lost. The sultan of the time, Mehmet, was competent enough to hold the dying empire together for a little bit longer, though, even achieving some things that I would’ve mentioned in my last update on the Ottomans, but unfortunately for the Ottoman Empire, he was quickly growing old, and did not have a ton of time left. He was also the main thing keeping the empire together. He had successfully appeased Arab separatism within the empire, but it hadn’t really gone away, and many Arabs still resented the rule of the Turk. The Turkish Levant and Mesopotamia was primarily Arab, but there were an increasing number of Turks settling there, which raised the ethnic tensions in those regions, especially since the growing oil industry was largely controlled by the new Turkish migrants. Once Sultan Mehmet died, who knew what would happen to the struggling empire?
Well, in 1955, Mehmet was diagnosed with cancer. Being in his 70s, it was going to be an uphill battle for him to survive, even with the world class medical care that you’d expect a sultan to receive. Despite the best work of his doctors, the cancer metastasized, and it became abundantly clear that his time on this Earth was coming to an end. Finally, on January 30th, 1956, Sultan Mehmet passed away, to be succeeded by his son Ali. Little did they know at Ali’s coronation that spring that he would be the final Ottoman sultan…
Shortly after Ali ascended to the throne, the Arab separatists decided to test the new sultan by rebelling. Arab rebellions popped up in the parts of the fertile crescent that were still under Ottoman rule, particularly in The Levant. The region of The Levant was mainly Arab, with the remainder composed of groups like the Turks, Jews and Armenians. It had been under Ottoman rule for centuries, but had been experiencing an upsurge of separatism in recent decades, especially after the Balkan War. Arab separatists began organizing in the region, committing acts against the Ottoman authorities and military and generally becoming a nuisance. The insurgency would be a slow burn for a few years, until, in the Summer of ‘59, sh*t would officially hit the fan in The Levant…
Inspired by the Hindustani rebellion against the British, the Syrian Liberation Front, or SLF, one of the main rebel groups in The Levant, began to increase its activities. They’d due all the things you’d expect from a rebel group, harassing local Ottoman troops and officials, robbing banks and supply trucks, even taking territory. It is this latter action, the occupation of territory, that would lead to the event that would spark the Syrian War of Independence and the ultimate downfall of the Ottoman Empire.
The SLF would store military equipment and supplies within the towns they occupied, often with the support of the locals who were sick of Turkish rule. Prominent buildings within these towns would double as military supply warehouses, which meant that any Ottoman attempt to retake the town would have to go into civilian buildings, which could lead to the death of civilians at the hands of Ottoman troops. Well, in June of 1959, that’s exactly what happened.
It was like any typical hot summer day for the residents of the countryside between Damascus and Irbid. The sun was shining high in the Levantine sky, the call to prayer had already rung out twice, and the residents of this unspecified town were just about ready to eat lunch. This town also happened to be under the control of the SLF, and was a major supply hub for them. Thus, the Ottomans marched on the town that day in order to take one of the SLF’s main bases. To make a long story short, though, it went terribly wrong. A mob confronted the Ottomans, with SLF fighters being mixed in with civilians. When The Ottomans and the SLF got into a gunfight, the Ottomans wound up firing upon civilians, killing several dozen and wounding many more. The news of this massacre spread fast, outraging the entire region, with many areas pledging their loyalty to the rebels. Now the Ottoman Empire was at war with Arab rebels across their entire Levantine and Arab territory, with the Arab rebels getting covert support from other Arab states like Egypt. The rebels in Greater Syria, including the SLF, decided to coalesce into the United Syrian Front, or USF. Arabs in areas like Kuwait also rebelled, looking to join nearby Mesopotamia (renamed Iraq). The Mesopotamian government embraced these rebels, declaring war on the Ottoman Empire in order to get their slice of the collapsing empire. Two other sultanates in the Arabian peninsula also declared war on the Ottomans, also to gain land. With this total onslaught on the Ottoman position in the fertile crescent, the Ottoman military was pressed very hard, struggling desperately to hold on. Morale was declining rapidly, and a sinking feeling that the Ottoman Empire was in its final days was setting in throughout the Ottoman military, government, crown and public. By 1962, some Turkish soldiers were flat out refusing to go to Syria, saying that the war was useless and that the empire should just cut their losses. Even then, Sultan Ali wouldn’t let the empire his ancestors had built up for over 650 years die without a fight. His father had lost the last Ottoman territories in Europe, so Ali was determined to keep the Ottoman Empire’s last territories in Arabia. In the following year, 1963, the Ottomans were still desperately fighting in the Fertile Crescent, but continued to lose ground to the rebels. By this point, even a lot of the high-ranking officers in the military were beginning to give up hope, and were urging Ali to throw in the towel and go to the negotiation table with the rebels. Ali still wouldn’t give in, though, urging the generals to press on in the hope that things could turn around. Heading into 1964, protests were starting to pop up in more and more Ottoman cities, with dissatisfied Turks voicing their frustrations with the government and the sultan. These protests began to turn into riots as tensions boiled over, and one of these would end up changing the course of history forever…
In early March of 1964, protests began to erupt in the Ottoman capital of Bursa, demanding an end to the war immediately. An angry mob gathered outside of the sultan’s residence, demanding the abdication of Ali. However, Ali wasn’t there. In order to escape from the chaos that was engulfing his realm, he, his wife and his two daughters had gone to their retreat in the mountains outside of Bursa. With pressure mounting, though, Ali was convinced to return to Bursa and attempt negotiations with the protesters. It may have been better to stay in the mountains, though, as this decision would ultimately lead to the end of his life.
As the royal motorcade entered Bursa, a crowd gathered around it. Some were hecklers giving the sultan and his family a piece of their mind, some were, despite their gripes, genuinely thrilled to see the sultan, and some were just curious. However, there was a seedier side to this too. Some within the Ottoman Empire had become so dissatisfied with Sultan Ali that they had plans to carry out the unthinkable: assassinate the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. One of these men had brought a grenade to the protest, hoping to get a chance to lob it at the Sultan and watch him go kaboom. Well, get a chance he did, as he spotted the motorcade coming up the road towards him. The driver had forgotten to close the windows, and Sultan Ali was in the passenger seat. Thus, the assassin lit his grenade, aimed and threw it. He probably should’ve tried out for an American Football (or whatever TTL’s equivalent is) team, because the throw was right on the money, flying right into the window and landing on the floor of the vehicle. Before the Sultan, driver or the other passengers of the vehicle had time to react, the car exploded in a fiery blast, with the Sultan, his wife and daughters and the driver dying instantaneously, along with dozens of people in the crowd who were struck by debris from the car. The assassin, who sustained minor injuries from debris but was otherwise unharmed, snuck away from the scene but was caught and arrested several days later, and after a quick trial was executed by firing squad. However, with the assassination, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was dead, and ultimately the Ottoman Empire as well, but that’s something for next time.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 134: The End of The Ottomans 2/2​

The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was dead. While Ali may not have been popular, the assassination of the Sultan was a shock to pretty much everyone in the Ottoman Empire, and no one really knew where things were going after this. Ali had only two kids, both of whom were daughters, and he was also the only son of Mehmet, whose other three children were female. Thus, there really wasn’t an obvious successor to the throne. Ali had several male cousins, but they’d probably start infighting to see who’d take the Ottoman throne. Needless to say, the fight for who would succeed Ali on the throne would be a messy one.
Or would anyone succeed Ali on the Ottoman throne? There were plenty of other organizations that wanted to take control of the country and shape it in their own image. There was a small cadre of republicans who wanted to replace the monarchy with a republic based either on the Dutch or Russian models. On the other side, there were those that rejected Westernization and looked for the Turkish realm to become an Islamic state run by clerics. However, it wouldn’t be any ambitious ideologues that would form the new Turkey, but rather something much more familiar with the reins of power.
The moment news of the Sultan’s assassination reached the Ottoman military high command, they sprung into action to secure the state and prevent chaos. The high command declared martial law within the Ottoman Empire, and stated that it’d last indefinitely. With the homeland falling into a military junta, the already struggling Ottoman positions in the Levant completely collapsed, with Syrian separatists and the Mesopotamian Army completely overrunning the remainder of the Ottoman-controlled fertile crescent. While an official peace treaty wouldn’t be drafted until the dust settled in the Turkish heartland, the assassination and subsequent declaration of martial law basically meant the end of Turkish control in the Levant. Once controlling an area stretching from Hungary to Sudan, the Turkish realm had now shrunk to just the Anatolian heartland.
Within Anatolia, the military regime was busy solidifying its rule. The junta’s top priority was to secure order and suppress any opposition. Obviously the man responsible for the assassination of Sultan Ali and his family was found, tried and executed, but this extended beyond just him to anti-government organizations en whole. Across the political spectrum from Leftists to Islamists, opposition was broken up by the military regime, with leaders arrested and organizations forcibly dissolved. The junta didn’t intend to rule forever, but merely to secure the stability of the Turkish state before eventually forming a new government for the future.
Meanwhile, after securing Anatolia, the regime decided to come to the table with the Syrian rebels and with the various Arab states to draft an official treaty ending the war in The Levant. Syria was to become a new independent state stretching from Antioch in the north down to Sinai in the south, with the capital being placed in Damascus. Notably, Syria contained Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judaism and Christianity and the third holiest city in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. Kurdistan, Hejaz and the eastern Arabian state I forgot the name of also gained a bit of land from the now deceased Ottoman Empire. While there wouldn’t be any official policy of repatriation towards the more than two million ethnic Turks living in the newly independent countries, most of the Turkish population packed their bags and headed to Anatolia.
Even with the Turks gone, that didn’t mean that the new Syrian state was by any means unified, as the Arab population of the region was divided between a Muslim majority and a sizable Christian minority, particularly in Lebanon where the two religions were roughly equal in size. In addition, the Muslims were divided between the majority Sunnis and minority Shias, with there also being a noticeable Jewish community in the region. Thus, in order to keep the state together, Christians, Shias and Jews were provided freedom of religion, although Sunnis were obviously still the dominant religious group. The new country was also divided into several provinces like Lebanon, Antioch, Aleppo, Jerusalem and Sinai in order to better manage the country region by region. When it came to the form of government Syria would adopt, the Syrian framers offered the Syrian throne to the Hashemite dynasty of Hejaz, with the family accepting the offer. Thus, the Kingdom of Syria was born.
Going back to Anatolia, the military junta began pondering what to put in place after they were gone, as they didn’t plan on staying in power permanently. One thing was sure, though, it wouldn’t be a restoration of the House of Osman. That era was well and truly over, and while the members of the House of Osman were allowed to keep their properties and given a state pension for their service to the nation, they weren’t going to be ruling the new Turkish state anytime soon. No, the big debate here among the military regime was whether to turn the new Turkish state into a monarchy under a new dynasty or a republic. A monarchy would be keeping with tradition and bring an orderly transfer of power, while a republic would make it a sharper break with the rest of Turkish history and would allow this new state to establish a more separate identity from the Ottoman past. The Ottoman Empire, unlike the monarchies of Europe, didn’t really have a hereditary nobility, so there weren’t any sort of obvious candidates for a new Turkish throne. The top figures in the military junta were mostly high-ranking Ottoman officers, so they could work as monarchical candidates, but that would be too obvious of a continuation of the military regime. Thus, the decision was made to turn the new Turkish state into a republic…
First off, the new Turkish republican state would move its capital from the post-Balkan War Ottoman Capital of Bursa (which would maintain a status as the royal city) to the central Anatolian city of Konya, which was not only more centrally located and defensible but also had been the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate centuries prior. Speaking of Anatolia, because of the already existing country of Turkestan in Central Asia and the existing Turkish state of Rumelia in Europe, the new state was to be called the Republic of Anatolia, although the people themselves were still called Turks instead of Anatolians. The government would have a unitary structure, albeit with local governance at the town and regional levels. Electorally, the Anatolian Republic would have a bicameral parliament elected, with the upper house based on the national popular vote and the lower house based on local elections, with the head of state, or Grand Vizier, being appointed by the parliament. Each house would have elections every four years on a rotating schedule, so there would be a parliamentary election every two years, just for one of the two houses. The Grand Vizier would have to be reappointed by both houses every two years, which was hoped would mean that ineffective leaders could get the boot in due time and that politically extreme figures couldn’t ascend to the position of Grand Vizier as easily. A downside of this would be potential gridlock if the two houses couldn’t agree on a figure, but this was a bit of an oversight at the time. Thus, after a decade of military rule, the new Republic of Anatolia held its first elections for the upper house in 1974 and the lower house in 1976, with one of the top generals from the junta being appointed the first Grand Vizier of the Republic of Anatolia. Whether this new republican form of government would end up working out for Anatolia was yet to be seen, but for now, it was definitely a new start. I’ll get back to writing my other TL soon, although EC/FC isn’t going anywhere, and until then, have a great day.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 135: Union del Pueblo​

As I was thinking about what update I should do after my collapse of the Ottomans updates, I realized that I hadn’t covered Latin America in quite a while. I was originally planning on making one giant Latin American update, but I then realized that it’d be better to go region by region, from north to south. Thus, this series of Latin American updates will start in the northernmost country in the region, Mexico. Florida should be considered part of Latin America, being in the Americas and speaking a Latin-descended language, but I’m not going to cover it in this series of updates. Without further ado, ¡vamonos!
We start our journey in Mexico, the northernmost of the Hispanophone countries in The Americas, stretching as far north as 38 degrees latitude. Once the center of multiple great pre-Columbian civilizations, Mexico was now a nation of blended European (mainly Spanish) and Amerindian origins, the former more in the north and the latter more in the south. In addition to the ethnic divide, there was also a large regional divide in terms of economics, as the north was significantly wealthier than the south, although the north wasn’t by any means first world and many Norteños lived in poverty. Holding a country with such large regional divisions together was quite a challenge for the Mexican government, especially since it was also prone to corruption and incompetence (I mean, it’s Latin America, corrupt and incompetent governments just kind of come with the territory). The government would have to balance out northern and southern interests carefully, as going too far in one direction could seriously piss off the other, which wouldn’t be good since both the north and south had active separatist movements.
Anyway, there are some other things about Mexico that I touched on in my last Mexican update (dang, was it really a year and a half ago?) that I’m gonna continue with here, that being Mexican politics. I mentioned that Mexican politics since the colonial era had been dominated by the landowning elite descended from the conquistadors, with some pre-conquest native nobility thrown in there as well. A good chunk of Mexico’s land was owned by just a small handful of extremely powerful families, as well as by the Catholic Church. I also mentioned that this was beginning to change by the middle of the 20th Century. The post-independence era in Mexican politics had seen the rise of the Union del Pueblo, or People’s Union political party. Inspired by LeGrand in neighboring Florida and the Russian Popular Party in, well, Russia, the Union del Pueblo, or UDP for short, combined Mexican nationalism and folk Catholicism with populist, socialist-ish economic policies that were basically tailor made for the typical Mexican peasant or laborer. This was best exemplified through the party’s leader, Juan Ignacio Gomez, a Mestizo from the heartland of Mexico who grew up in a working class family and considered becoming a priest before going into politics. Gomez was a very charismatic speaker, and used his charisma to quickly rise within Mexican politics, with his campaign rallies becoming massive events with tens of thousands of attendees. In these speeches, Gomez railed against the oligarchs and Gringo foreigners that dominated the Mexican economy, and pledged to put the common man, whether he be an Italian winemaker in Alta California or a Mixtec peasant in Oaxaca in charge. This message proved to be massively popular with the broader Mexican public, across ethnic and regional lines, and it became clear that, sooner or later, Gomez (I dare you to take a drink every time I use that word) was going to take power in Mexico. Election season was coming up in Mexico in 1942, and it was certain that Gomez would win. The Mexican oligarchs certainly didn’t like it, but well, what could they do? Stage a coup? Well, that’d be certain to cause a civil war, one which they very well may lose. Call on the Gringos for help? That’d make it seem as though the elite and the Americans were conspiring to trample upon the average Mexican, which would enrage the Mexican public even further and possibly spark a revolution. Thus, when Gomez and the UDP won by a considerable margin in 1942, the Mexican elite bit their tongues and accepted it begrudgingly.
Right away Gomez and the UDP would run into some issues. One of the top priorities of the UDP was land reform. While the Spanish had initially not given out large land grants, over time more and more land had become concentrated in the hands of elite landowning families, as well as foreigners (mostly American) and the Church. These ranged from cash crop growing haciendas in the Mexican heartland to large cattle ranches in the North, many of these being worked by landless peasants. Gomez pledged to his followers that, if he were to come to power, he would redistribute land from the elites and foreigners to the Mexican people. This was going to be much easier said than done, though. One does not simply expropriate land, especially if it’s without compensation, as Gomez suggested he’d do if he got the chance. Once Gomez got into power after the 1942 election, he tried to find a way to pursue expropriation without compensation. The Mexican Constitution that had been drafted after the Second Global War had explicit protection of the right to private property, which would make any sort of seizure blatantly illegal. This was a big obstacle to Gomez’s goal of land redistribution, so while some land was expropriated, it wasn’t a whole lot. Gomez, however, had grown to be a pragmatic politician, especially for a working-class populist, so he had other, more indirect means at his disposal. One of these was to implement a land tax on holdings over a certain size, hoping to make large landholders sell off part of their land. This worked to a certain extent, with a good number of large landholders selling off some of their more marginal land, but there were still a lot who could afford to pay the tax or just refused to sell. The land tax law didn’t apply to the Catholic Church, as Gomez was himself a practicing Catholic and didn’t want to alienate the Church, but there was another method that did, that was directly purchasing the land. The Mexican Government under the UDP offered to purchase large swaths of land from hacienda owners and the Catholic Church, sometimes at a rate above market value, after which it’d sell them to peasants at a reduced rate. Common agricultural and grazing lands were also set up, known as ejidos, modeled off of both Amerindian and Spanish traditions. Peasants would acquire parcels of ejido land that they could use, often land taken or acquired from the large agricultural estates I mentioned earlier.
In addition to land reform, Gomez and the UDP had several other major policies and political promises that they went about while in power. One of those was gaining control of Mexico’s natural resources. Many of the owners of Mexico’s resource deposits were foreigners, most often Americans, and while it did bring money into the country, many Mexicans felt as though it was leading to Gringo domination over the country’s economy, and that Mexico’s resources should be, well, Mexican. Thus, the Mexican government under Gomez created a new national oil company, the Sindicato Petrolero Nacional (SPN for short), or National Petroleum Syndicate, to extract and manage Mexico’s oil resources. Similar conglomerates were formed for Mexico’s various mineral resources. All foreign owned mineral and oil deposits within Mexico were soon bought off or seized before being put under the control of the new state-run enterprises. This did piss off the Commonwealth of America to a substantial degree, and a few MP’s actually proposed going to war with Mexico, but those plans didn’t go through. Instead, the Commonwealth refused to buy these goods from Mexico, which wasn’t great, considering the Commonwealth was Mexico’s largest trade partner.
Aside from land and resource redistribution, Gomez and the UDP had several other priorities while in power. One of those was to build new infrastructure across the country. While infrastructure like railways, roads and electricity were present in Mexico, this was often limited to the major cities, while rural areas, particularly those that were in parts of the country that were more mountainous or inaccessible often lacked any modern amenities. So, Gomez’s government would go on to build new infrastructure to more easily connect these rural towns and villages to the core of Mexico. In addition to roads and railroads, the UDP would also build new schools and medical clinics in these rural areas, often with the help of the Church. This proved incredibly popular with the Mexican peasantry, who were solidified as the UDP’s strongest base of support, which was awfully convenient for them because the largest segment of Mexican society was the peasantry during this time period.
When it came to Mexico’s cities, Gomez and the UDP would aim to grow Mexico’s industrial base. The natural resources were obviously part of this, but Gomez also wanted Mexico to develop a manufacturing base, which it mostly lacked at this point in time. For example, a new public-private autocarriage (OOC: TTL’s term for automobiles) company called Aztlan was founded, aimed at providing your average Mexican family with affordable cars. New Aztlan factories were built in major cities such as Monterrey, Guadalajara and, of course, Mexico City, employing thousands of workers and producing scores of autocarriages. While Mexico’s manufacturing industry was still in its infancy, and paled in comparison to, say, its northern neighbor’s industrial might, it was still a start, and perhaps Mexico’s industrial reach would eventually expand beyond just domestic consumption.
Of course, with all this talk of a populist Latin American politician, there are bound to be downsides. You know all that land that was bought up or expropriated? Well, a lot of it was given to Gomez’s friends and cronies, who became rich off of their connections. Similarly, many times ideological allies were put in charge of the new state-run or backed companies and enterprises instead of actual businessmen, leading to inefficiency, corruption and shoddy quality. In addition, the massive state spending undertaken during this era would cause both a large increase in debt and significant inflation, which could come back to bite the country in the ass in the future. Despite the corruption, inefficiency, debt and inflation, Gomez and the Union del Pueblo were still massively popular with the Mexican people, and he would stay in power in Mexico up until 1958. As much as the traditional Mexican elite may not have liked it, the UDP was to remain a permanent force in Mexican politics for the foreseeable future, although other parties like the Liga Nacional would still be able to compete for leadership from time to time. I’ll continue the Latin American theme in the next couple of updates, the first of which should be out by the end of the month, so until then, ¡hasta luego!

 

[Gabingston]

Part 136: Caribbean Queen​

On the second part of our Latin American journey, we move southeast from Mexico to the lands in and around the Caribbean Sea. This update will be split between the mainland regions of Central America and northern South America and the islands of the Caribbean Sea, be they larger islands like Cuba and Hispaniola or the numerous small islands of the Antilles. I’ll start with the Caribbean islands before moving to the mainland. Without further ado, let’s get this update started.
Once inhabited by native groups like the Arawak, Taino and Carib, the latter of whom would give their name to the region, their populations swiftly declined after the region was discovered by the Spanish, due to a mix of disease and brutality on the part of said Spaniards. After taking hold of much of the Caribbean, the Spanish would mainly use the islands as a waystation to the much more important conquests of Mexico and Peru. Once other Europeans like the British, Dutch and French began to colonize the islands, though, their use changed drastically. The tropical climate and fertile, sometimes volcanic soil of the islands made them ideal for the cultivation of cash crops like sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton and various fruits. With this massive cash crop production, the colonial powers would need a labor source, and I think you know what that means…
Yup, slavery. Of the 10-12 million Africans that were taken in bondage to the new world between the 16th and 19th Centuries, around 40% went to the Caribbean, where most would die within a few years of arrival due to the sheer brutality of the sugar plantations. Days were never finished, master had them working and master would most likely not set them free. Fortunately, this horrific practice would be put to an end over the course of the 19th Century, albeit without causing the suffering and death of millions, to be replaced in large part by indentured servants from Asia in many cases. The European colonial powers held onto the Caribbean into the 20th Century, but things would soon be shaken up…
At the end of the Second Global War, the Spanish were forced to grant independence to their colonies of Cuba and Santo Domingo, the latter being merged with the newly independent French Saint-Domingue to form the new Republic of Hispaniola. In Cuba, it became like any other Hispanic American country, take it as you will. Hispaniola, though, wouldn’t wind up surviving as a unified state for long. The two halves of Hispaniola were radically different from each other to the point where maintaining unity was a hopeless endeavor. The eastern half that had been under Spanish rule was Hispanophone and largely mixed-race, while the western half that had been a French colony spoke a French Creole language and was overwhelmingly African, with a smattering of mixed and European inhabitants as well. These linguistic and ethnic differences, combined with the capital being placed in Santo Domingo on the eastern half of the island would lead to the western half declaring independence as the new Republic of Quisqueya, taking the name from one of the Taino names for the island. The government in Santo Domingo said “not so fast”, and thus the Quisqueyan War of Independence began. The landscape of Hispaniola is largely rough and mountainous, which meant that either side making progress was difficult. The Hispaniolans went on the offensive to reconquer their seceded region, with one offensive heading towards Port-au-Prince in the south and the other towards Cap-Français in the north. These stalled out, though, as the Quisqueyans were determined to defend their independence, and it soon turned into trench warfare on both the northern and southern fronts. To make a long story short, the war dragged on for two years with not much change on either side before the two decided to call it off and come to the table. In the end, Quisqueya had successfully defended their independence, and were thus officially recognized as a free and sovereign state by all parties involved. Thus, the previously unified island of Hispaniola was now split in two, with the surviving Republic of Hispaniola in the east and the newly independent Quisqueya in the west.
Outside of Cuba and Hispaniola, the rest of the Caribbean was still under European rule, whether it be the British, French, Dutch or some other European power. This status quo had worked for a long time, but by the middle of the 20th Century, demands were rising for proper representation of the islands within their respective countries or for complete independence. We’ll go over what each country did with their Caribbean possessions. First, Britain, the largest Caribbean power. They had islands ranging from Jamaica to The Bahamas to Porto Rico and the various islands of the Antilles. With such a large amount of islands, different solutions were pursued for each region. To start, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos opted to join the Commonwealth of America, knowing that if they were to do so, they could become massive tourist destinations. Jamaica and Porto Rico, the two largest and most populous British islands in the Caribbean became independent countries, albeit retaining the British monarch as head of state. Finally, all the other British Caribbean islands were directly annexed into the UK, with residents of the islands now being able to vote and elect their own MPs who would travel to Britain.
The latter strategy of direct annexation with representation would be the strategy pursued by the other European powers as well. The Netherlands properly annexed the ABC Islands and Sint Maarten, France integrated Guadeloupe, Denmark did so with the Virgin Islands and Sweden did so with Saint Barthelemy. Trinidad and Tobago, the last part of The Americas under direct Spanish rule, voted to join New Granada. The integrated regions would now be full parts of their respective nations, being able to vote in elections and holding full citizenship, which allowed them to migrate to the metropoles of their respective countries, which thanks to air travel was now possible within a day or less. With the Caribbean being poorer than the metropole, this meant that large amounts of Caribbean migration to the metropole began to occur. For example, Jamaican, Puerto Rican and other West Indian quarters began to pop up in London, New York and other Anglo-American cities to larger and larger extents, and if it weren’t for the cooler weather, you’d think you were in Kingston or San Juan. In return, the Caribbean islands began to get large amounts of tourists and retirees, mostly from the Commonwealth of America. Air travel made it possible to go from the core of the Commonwealth of America to the Caribbean in just a few short hours, and soon American tourists were flocking to the Caribbean in droves, especially during the winter. Tourism would come to be the main economic engine for much of the Caribbean, leading the shift away from agriculture and fishing towards urbanization in the region.
On the south shore of the Caribbean in New Granada, though, urbanization was occurring for an entirely different reason, that being the massive oil reserves that had been discovered. One of these was located around the Maracaibo Lagoon and the other along the Orinoco River, both of them in the region of Venezuela, as well as a few smaller deposits scattered around the rest of the country. This was a game changer for New Granada, as this mostly rural and agrarian country now had a major commodity to export. Cities in Venezuela like Maracaibo, Caracas and Puerto La Cruz began to balloon in size due to either their proximity to the oil fields, acting as the locations where the crude oil was refined and then exported, much of it going to the oil poor Latin countries of Southern Europe, who the New Granadans had strong commercial ties with.
With all the wealth flowing into Venezuela, the oil boom did accentuate many of New Granada’s regional divisions. While the country had stayed together since independence, it hadn’t always been easy. New Granada, while not the largest of countries, was still pretty sizable, and was divided internally by the Andes and various jungles, including part of the Amazon Rainforest. The territory of New Granada had even been split up at times throughout its past before being remerged into one unit. In addition, New Granada was also a very ethnically diverse country, with the largest segment being Mestizos but with large European, Native and African components as well. Needless to say, the central government in Bogota often had a hard time keeping these disparate regions and ethnic groups together. One would think that the oil wealth would help, and in a way it did, but it also made the other regions of the country jealous of oil-rich Venezuela. The non-oil producing regions wanted much of the revenue to be spread around the country, while oil producing Venezuela naturally wanted to keep the fruits of their labor. Thus, the government would have to walk a fine line when addressing the different regional interests when it came to oil revenue. As with other Latin American countries that had natural resources, the New Granadan government established a state-run oil company, PetroGranada, which would handle the extraction, processing and export of New Granada’s oil reserves. They’d then use the profits from the oil industry to invest in infrastructure, education and other useful things for the country’s development (as well as siphoning off money to cronies, but that’s to be expected for Latin America). The oil industry provided thousands of well paying, stable jobs to New Granadan citizens, as well as a sizable number of immigrants both from nearby countries and from Europe, most of them settling in Venezuela. Knowing that putting all of your eggs in one basket wasn’t a good idea, the New Granadan government also began to pursue other industries such as tourism along with improvements to the mining and agricultural sectors that had long been the dominant forces in the New Granadan economy. Foreign economic advisors were brought in to assist with and manage the development and modernization and to boost trade connections between New Granada and the other questions. Even with that, New Granada was still a rather poor country, with a long way to go in terms of economic development, and whether they’d actually get there is still an open question (OTL’s Venezuela certainly didn’t). With that said, we’ve still got one more country to go before this update is complete, so let’s get to it, shall we?
In between Mexico to the northwest and New Granada to the southeast lay Guatemala, which spanned the bridge between North and South America. A land of dense jungles, towering volcanoes and ancient Mayan ruins, Guatemala was a surprisingly diverse country for such a small area, both geographically and demographically. Said diversity came with challenges, though, as governing a country split by geographic features and between multiple different ethnic groups was difficult to say the least, made only more so by the lack of infrastructure to connect the country together. Guatemala also had pretty much no industry to speak of, with the economy being overwhelmingly based on agriculture, particularly tropical cash crops. Demographically speaking, Guatemala might just have been the most Indigenous country in The Americas, with the vast majority of the population being of full or partial Native descent. Some of the natives in more isolated rural areas were even monolingual speakers of their ancestral tongues, quite impressive considering that it’d been 400 years since the Spanish conquest of the region. Really, there isn’t a ton to say about Guatemala, at least at this moment. The update is already running long, and I’ve got other stuff to work on, so I’ll call it here. Hopefully I’ll have another update out before the end of the year. I’m gonna try to get this TL wrapped up in 2023, after which I’ll start the Maps & Graphics Spinoff. FOr the time being though, I must say goodbye, I’ll see you next time.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 137: Incas and Gauchos​

For the third part of our Grand Tour of Latin America, we travel south to the countries of Peru and La Plata. These two countries contained an incredible variety of both natural and man-made environments, from native villages high up in the Andes to large, European-style cities. I’ll start in Peru before moving down to La Plata, which will complete our journey through Hispanic America, although I’ll cover Brazil and Patagonia afterwards. So, without further ado, let’s get this update started!
Before the Spanish conquest in the mid 16th Century, Peru was one of the great centers of Amerindian civilization, being home to millions of people and one of pre-colonial America’s greatest states, the Inca Empire. Long story short, a mix of disease, civil war and incredibly good luck on the Spanish end led to the Inca Empire being conquered by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the 1530s, with the last Amerindian resistance folding by the 1570s. From there, Peru would be under Spanish colonial rule for three centuries, with the silver mines (particularly the Cerro Rico of Potosi) becoming a major source of revenue for the Spanish crown (which they would mostly waste on failed attempts to conquer Europe). It wasn’t until after the First Global War that the Spanish Crown would grant the Peruvians self-governance as the Kingdom of Peru, still with the Spanish monarch as head of state but independent in every other way. While there was talk about putting the nation’s capital in the old Inca capital of Cusco, it was decided to keep it in the Viceroyal capital of Lima, the largest city in Peru and the main gateway to the country. Lima was a surprisingly cosmopolitan city, with the district of Callao being the largest port in the country. In the city were Peruvians of all stripes, as well as various European immigrants and even a sizable Asian population. Outside of Lima and a few other major cities, though, Peru could be a very isolated country with few connections to the rest of the world. Peru was possibly the most Amerindian country in The Americas, with a significant portion of the population speaking Indigenous languages like Quechua or Aymara natively. These Amerindians mostly lived in rural areas, often with a lifestyle not too different from their pre-contact ancestors, though with the Sun God having been replaced by the Son of God. The majority of Peruvians by this point though were Mestizos of mixed Amerindian and European (mainly Spanish) ancestry, with a bit of African scattered in there as well. Mestizos were a bit more urbanized than Amerindians and mostly spoke Spanish as their first language, but many Amerindian cultural traits and practices survived among them. While not as large as in other Latin American countries, there was also a decent sized White population, whether of colonial-era Spanish origin or from the more recent European immigrants, though Peru wasn’t an immigration magnet like some of its neighbors. As was the case in other Latin American countries, this immense ethnic diversity made the country difficult to govern at times. This was made more difficult by the geography of the country, namely the towering Andes, which bisected the country and made transportation very difficult. Needless to say, Peru wasn’t exactly the wealthiest country, and much of, if not the majority of the population lived in grinding poverty, particularly in the aforementioned isolated rural areas. As in other parts of Latin America, populism began to rise in the Mid 20th Century, as more and more Peruvians gained access to the franchise, which required one to be literate in Spanish at the time, though this would be changed to allow all adult citizens to vote in the future, in large part due to the populists pushing for it. As in other areas, a big part of the populist platform was land reform, handing over land from large haciendas to the peasants who worked them. The old aristocracy of Peru still held a lot of power and influence, though, so it wouldn’t be easy. That’s enough about Peru for the time being, so now I want to move south to the land of the Tango, Gauchos and Dancing Cucumbers, that being La Plata.
When it came to Spanish colonies, La Plata had always been on the backburner, with much more attention being paid to the more lucrative colonies of Mexico and Peru. The area didn’t really begin to take off until the Spanish crown established the Viceroyalty of Rio De La Plata, separating the region from the Viceroyalty of Peru and thus giving it a higher status. This enabled Buenos Aires, which had previously relied on illegal trade due to the Spanish centralizing all exports from Peru in Callao, began to take off as a major port city, becoming the main Spanish port on the South Atlantic. In contrast to the highly populated indigenous civilizations of Mexico and Peru, the native population in La Plata was rather small. This meant that the colony took on a more European character than the rest of Hispanic America. This would only be enhanced by the mass amount of European immigrants the country received from the mid 19th Century onwards. While Spain had for a long time only allowed Castilians to migrate to the colonies, this was loosened to allow any European Catholic to move to the Spanish colonies.
While La Plata lost a good chunk of its land to Brazil after the Second Global War, it still had a lot of fertile, arable land to be settled, as well as major cities like Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba, Mendoza and Santiago. La Plata also had some of the most productive farmland in the world in the fertile Pampas, and with so much of La Plata being lightly populated well into the 19th Century, the government encouraged Europeans to settle in the countryside and grow the country’s agricultural sector. By the beginning of the 20th Century, La Plata had become a major agricultural exporter, both of crops like wheat and corn and animal products like beef and wool.
While not rolling in the dough by any means, La Plata was the most prosperous country in Hispanic America, which made it extremely attractive to Spanish immigration, along with Italians who spoke a Romance language and didn’t have overseas colonies of their own (unless you want to count Neapolitan Libya). Between the burgeoning cities and fertile countryside, La Plata became the most prosperous of all of the Hispanic American countries, having a standard of living more comparable to Northern Italy than to their contemporaries. I wish I could write more right now, but I have some serious writer's block at the moment and am thus going to call it a day. This will likely be the last EC/FC update of 2022, and Christmas is right around the corner, so I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 138: The Giant of South America​

For the final part of our Latin American tour, we move to the giant of South America, that being the Empire of Brazil. While originally being a colony of Portugal, Brazil had by this point long surpassed the mother country as the center of the Portuguese Empire, with the emperor even residing in Rio rather than Lisbon. As mentioned in the title of a past update, the tail had long since started wagging the dog in the case of Portugal and Brazil, much more than was the case with America and Britain, where Britain could at least hold its own against their larger former colony. A very large proportion of Portuguese during the 19th and early 20th Centuries emigrated to Brazil (along with other colonies like Angola, Mozambique and Capricornia), leading to concerns that the country would empty out. It wasn’t just the Portuguese heading to Brazil, though. A massive wave of immigration had come to Brazil during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, much of it from Portugal but also from other Catholic European countries (particularly the Italian states) and from the Catholic populations in the Middle East. Most immigrants headed to Brazil settled in the southern part of the country, which had a temperate climate and lots of fertile land. When combined with the small Indigenous population and lack of slavery (and thus a low Black population), Southern Brazil became easily the more European part of the country, with Porto Alegre or Montevidéu looking like your typical Southern European city. The fertile Pampas were settled by Italian, German and Polish immigrants who would often settle in their own colonies and maintain their own culture and languages for a long period of time. The wave of immigration had only solidified Brazil’s status as the premier country in South America, one it was most likely destined to have just due to its sheer size. Brazil was the third largest country in the world by land area, only trailing Russia and the Commonwealth. While much of this land was covered by the thick and impenetrable Amazon Rainforest, this still left a lot of land ripe for settlement. The main historic export of Brazil were tropical cash crops like sugar, coffee, tobacco and cotton, historically cultivated by slave labor (more on the after-effects of that later). Subtropical Southern Brazil was more adept for European-style agriculture, but that’s already been covered here. Much of the Brazilian interior was used for pastoralism and ranching, most notably being Brazil’s huge beef sector. Brazil, however, hadn’t really industrialized up to this point, as while cities like Rio, São Paulo and Montevidéu were certainly large, most Brazilians of this era still lived in rural areas. The Brazilian government did however recognize the value of having a native industrial sector, which could really boost the economy of the country and provide many jobs to its citizens. Thus, during the middle of the 20th Century, the Brazilian government would begin a campaign to modernize the country and build a local industrial base. For example, Brazilian agriculture up to this point had still been done primarily by manual labor, with fieldhands planting, tending and harvesting crops with their two hands (and basic agricultural equipment).With the mechanization of agriculture in places like the Commonwealth of America and Europe, though, Brazil saw the value of modernizing their agriculture. Thus, beginning in the 1920s, modern agricultural technology and methods began to be used and practiced in Brazil. Machinery like tractors, planters and harvesters began to be utilized in the country, allowing more work to be done with fewer people and less time. The use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides increased output by a considerable amount, and also allowed areas like the Cerrado to become increasingly cultivated. With the mechanization of agriculture, less people were needed to work on the farms, which meant that more Brazilians would begin migrating to the country’s major cities. Brazil’s major cities would experience explosive growth during this time period as country folk would flood into the cities for work and a higher standard of living. These neighborhoods made to accommodate the new arrivals could be quite shoddily built and sometimes lacked basic modern amenities like water, sewage and electricity, but those would usually be added later on. In urban areas, industrialization would be pursued, with new factories, power plants, transportation networks and infrastructure being constructed. Rivers like the Paraná, Uruguai and São Francisco were dammed for hydroelectricity, producing massive amounts of power and creating large reservoirs in the process. The transportation infrastructure would also be improved in Brazil, with new rail lines and roads being constructed or improved. For example, the main road between Rio and São Paulo was upgraded to a multi-lane highway that could carry large amounts of traffic and would enable travel between the country’s two largest cities to be done in just an afternoon. With all the improvement going on in Brazil’s agricultural, industrial and transportation sectors, it should be no surprise that the Brazilian economy grew considerably during the middle of the 20th Century. Southern Brazil by the 1960s had a standard of living surpassing even some countries in Europe, while the north lagged significantly behind, which precipitated a sizable amount of migration from the poorer, more rural north to the wealthier, industrializing south. The north was urbanizing too, though, with Recife and Fortaleza ballooning in size during this era, each surpassing the one million milestone by 1970. With the growing cultivation of the Cerrado that I mentioned earlier, the Brazilian interior began to become more populated as well. New cities were founded in the Brazilian interior far from the traditional coastal base of the country, some growing quite rapidly into regional centers of trade, transport and commerce. Even the Amazon Rainforest was now being settled in larger and larger numbers, as the vast jungle which had previously only been settled to harvest rubber was now seen as prime real estate for expansion. With the expansion into the jungle (and Cerrado for that matter) came concerns over some of the negative environmental effects it could have. The Amazon was a treasure trove of different species, both flora and fauna, and was also home to some of the last uncontacted tribes in the world, who would be completely screwed if contact was made, largely due to disease. No existing nature reserve existed in the Amazon up to this point, since there was really not much of a need for one. With growing expansion by loggers, ranchers and others into the Amazon, though, conservationists and environmentalists lobbied the Luso-Brazilian emperor for the creation of nature reserves in the Amazon. Fortunately for them, the Emperor had gone on several excursions to the Amazon during his life, and had come to appreciate the vast, mostly untouched wilderness the region provided. The emperor was pragmatic, though, and had connections to high-profile figures in the ranching and logging sectors. Attempting to balance both environmental and business interests, the Emperor proposed the creation of several large nature reserves in the rainforest, protecting particularly the core of the rainforest around the Amazon River from deforestation. Some of the outer regions of the forest would remain open for settlement, since the industries I mentioned earlier needed to be given a reason to go along, and while a lot of the environmentalists didn’t like it, sometimes you’ve got to be satisfied with what you got. Thus, much of the Amazon Rainforest came to be protected land, some of it being used for more commercial national parks while others were made to be strictly off-limits to settlement, apart from the native tribes. While some squatters would still move into the protected areas, as the borders were difficult to enforce, deforestation declined markedly in the nature reserves, though it’d continue outside of these areas (which would lead to the creation of more protected areas in the future). I think I’ve talked enough about environmental subjects in this update, so let’s go back to demographics and politics, shall we?
The indigenous population of the country was estimated to have been at least several million before colonization, but their population collapsed after the arrival of the Portuguese. Despite Brazil being the largest participant in the Atlantic Slave Trade, the Black population of Brazil never grew that large, mainly because of the high death rate for slaves as well the prevalence of race mixing (for lack of a better term) in colonial and post-independence Brazil. Most of the population of Brazil wound up being either mixed-race Pardos or European-descended Brancos, the former more prominent in the north and the latter in the south. The wave of immigration I mentioned towards the beginning of this post began to slow down after about 1930, but immigrants continued to come to Brazil during the Mid 20th Century, mainly from Portugal and Italy. During this time period, most of Brazil’s population growth came from within the country, as this was the era of Brazil’s great demographic expansion, for reasons I brought up earlier. Brazil’s population grew from 20 million in 1900 to just shy of 60 million in 1950, and further to 100 million in 1970, growing five fold within just one human lifetime. This growth was even more pronounced in Brazil’s major cities, as while they may have had lower birth rates for obvious reasons, country folk streamed into the cities for jobs and a higher standard of living. Rio de Janeiro, the capital city of the Luso-Brazilian realm, grew to nearly 10 million people in the metro area by 1970. São Paulo grew to just over five million by 1970, while Montevidéu grew to just shy of three million. Many of Brazil’s other cities also grew precipitously during the middle of the 20th century, as I’d mentioned earlier with Recife and Fortaleza. Enough of demographics for now, though, it’s time to move on to politics.
I’ve talked in previous updates about the wave of populism in Latin American politics during this period of time, and Brazil isn’t going to be any sort of exception. Even with the growth of Brazilian cities and industry, the traditional landowning elite was still the driving force in Brazilian politics up to this point in time. Sure, slavery had been gone for half a century and agriculture itself was becoming less labor intensive and more industrial in nature, but the wealth and prestige gained in these families over the generations still made them quite prominent. The landowners made up much of Brazil’s political class, even as small farmers, industrialists and laborers gained a larger presence over time. The growth in political power in other segments of the population reached a critical mass during this era, though, as populist movements rose across Brazil. These Brazilian movements shared a lot in common with those in other parts of Latin America, a combination of redistributive, sometimes socialist economics with folk Catholicism. Populism took different forms depending on where you were in the country. In agricultural regions, it was about stuff like land reform, breaking up the plantations and giving the land to small farmers. In the industrial cities, trade unions were the big thing. Populist politicians would gain large followings and hold rallies with tens of thousands of attendees, promising to bring prosperity to the people. Populist parties, whether agrarian or urban, won seats in the Brazilian parliament and began lobbying for their preferred policies. Eventually populists became the majority in parliament, with populist politician João Luiz Ricci ascending to become the head of government. Ricci’s government pursued a lot of the same policies as LeGrand in Florida or Gomez in Mexico, gaining widespread popularity with the Brazilian public but also potentially causing some long term issues that would rear their head later on.
Far from being a mere colony of Portugal, Brazil was now the beating heart of the Lusophone world and the center of the Portuguese-Brazilian Empire, as well as being The Giant of South America. With this, the EC/FC Latin American Tour is now complete, and while I may revisit the region again in the future, I’ve got other places to catch up on now. I know it was a bit of a wait to get this update, but I hope this has been worth it for you guys. Stay tuned, because there will be more stuff along the way. Until then, though, goodbye and have a great day.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 139: Neuseeland 1/2​

Before I begin this update, I must make an important statement: this update is a retcon. Originally in the TL New Zealand was colonized by the Danes on the North Island and the Swedes on the South Island. I wasn’t quite satisfied with that, though, and had planned on changing New Zealand to be a German colony in the Maps & Graphics TL, which is why I haven’t really brought the Nordic New Zealand colonies back in any subsequent update. I was going to have to make a decision at this point, because my next update was going to be a broad overview of Australasia, which would include New Zealand. Would I continue with the Nordic New Zealand for the sake of this timeline and alter it in the Maps & Graphics, or would I retcon it and rewrite the script to make New Zealand German?
I wound up choosing the latter, and thus this update will be about the altered alternate history of New Zealand, one where it is colonized by the Germans. Don’t get too bummed out if you liked the Nordic New Zealand, though, as New Zealand will become a Nordic colony in my other TL once I get there, probably in three or four years, considering how much time there is between the present in that TL and the Early-Mid 19th Century when New Zealand would be colonized. I hope my explanation of the situation has sufficed, because I think it’s about time that I begin the update. Thus, without further ado, here we go.
The islands of New Zealand were the last major landmass to be settled by human beings, first being discovered and colonized by the Polynesians in the Middle Ages. These Polynesian settlers evolved into the Maori, who were composed of many different clans and tribes and numbered about 150,000. The first European to discover New Zealand was Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who found the islands in 1642 and named them Staten Landt, which would later be altered to Nieuw Zeeland, for the Dutch province of Zeeland. Due to skirmishes with the aforementioned Maori and the sheer distance from Europe (literally on the exact opposite side of the world), the next European explorer to visit would be from British explorer James Cook in 1769 (nice), followed soon thereafter by Frenchman Jean-François de Surville, the little time between the two voyages showing an increased European interest in the South Seas.
The increasing European interest and exploration of the area led to trade and contact between Europeans and Maori. Sailors came from Britain, France and America to fish, whale and seal, Christian missionaries arrived to preach the gospel and traders from both groups exchanged goods and services. Most notable of these was the Maori purchase of firearms from European traders, which they’d then use to conquer and subdue other tribes that didn’t possess such weapons. These wars are estimated to have killed up to 40,000 Maori, or over 1/4 of the population of New Zealand, with thousands more displaced or taken into slavery. The disruptions coming from the wars would ultimately pave the way for the colonization of the islands by an outside European power. The British, French and Dutch seemed like the top candidates, as they were the three European nations that had contacted and explored New Zealand the most, but ultimately the ones to take it for their own wouldn’t be any of them, but a country mostly new to the colonial game…
Due to their geographic position further away from the Atlantic and preoccupations back home, the nation of Prussia hadn’t really had overseas colonies. Sure, they’d had a fort or two in Africa and had attempted to purchase Caribbean islands in the past, but those attempts ultimately didn’t last. Things were different by the 1830s, though, as the Prussian government began to seek the establishment of an overseas colony. The Americas were pretty much taken, the one exception being Patagonia (which would soon be colonized by the British), Africa wasn’t really suitable for settlement outside of the south, which was already claimed and Australia was either already being colonized by other Europeans or a wasteland. Then there was New Zealand, the temperate archipelago on the exact opposite end of the world from Europe that hadn’t been colonized by any outside power. The Prussian King himself (unnamed, as this would be an ATL figure) had become interested in expanding Prussia’s reach beyond Europe, and enlisted the Prussian navy to explore the Pacific, which he saw as a region where Prussia could easily establish a foothold, since the European presence there was just starting. One of Prussia’s top admirals (also an unnamed ATL figure) conducted a voyage of exploration between 1828 and 1829, sailing from Hamburg to Kaapstad in Dutch South Africa and then using the strong currents of the Roaring Forties to reach the Antipodes. Upon reaching New Zealand, he and his crew voyaged throughout the islands, mapping as much of it as they could and establishing contact with the native Maori. The admiral gave the name New Saxony (Neusachsen) to the North Island and New Prussia (Neupreußen) to the South Island and reported that the islands were pleasant in climate and bountiful in resources. From New Zealand his expedition swung north to New Caledonia (which would become a German colony in the future, as I’ve already talked about in a previous update) and onto the numerous islands and atolls dotting the South Pacific. Once Polynesia had been traversed, they sailed onto the southern reaches of South America, rounded Cape Horn and returned to Europe. The King was very pleased by the results of this expedition, and ordered the creation of the Prussian South Seas Company (Preußische Südseegesellschaft). This company/charter would be responsible for increasing the influence and reach of Prussia in the South Pacific, trading with the natives and establishing Prussian settlements in the region. More voyages to the South Pacific were conducted in the early-mid 1830s, with more trade being conducted with the Maori and areas being scouted out for potential settlements in New Zealand. Areas on both shores of the Cook Strait were appealing locations, as were others like a thin isthmus on the northern end of New Saxony and a large, hilly peninsula with numerous inlets on New Prussia. German missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic, also began to make their way to New Zealand, joining others who’d already come to preach the gospel. In 1835, the king officially ordered the establishment of colonies in New Zealand, specifically around the Cook Strait. A fleet consisting of around 200 colonists, both free settlers and convicts, mostly petty thieves and debtors, dozens of crew members and supplies like food, seeds, fresh water and livestock departed from the port of Hamburg (which would become the main port of call for voyages headed to the Prussian colonies) on April 12th, 1836, bound for the other end of the world.
The voyage would be a long and arduous one, expected to take half a year based on previous expeditions, much of it spent sailing through the rough waters of the Antarctic Current, so the crew consisted of some of Prussia’s best and most experienced sailors, some of whom had been on previous expeditions to Neuseeland. A route to the Antipodes had been long established by this point, which would be what the fleet used. They’d sail through the North Sea and English Channel before turning southwest toward the Canary Current. There began the long journey south to the Cape of Good Hope. After weeks and weeks traversing the vast Atlantic Ocean, the fleet finally reached Kaapstad at the tail end of June, with the crew and settlers disembarking briefly to resupply and recuperate from the over two months on the high seas. After resupplying and getting some fresh air, the fleet resumed their voyage, heading south to catch the aforementioned Antarctic Current, which would take them right to Neuseeland. This part of the voyage wouldn’t be easy, however, as the seas on the current were among the roughest in the world, and that’s not to mention the ever-present threat of icebergs. Despite the risks, this was the route that would get them there the fastest, and thus it’d be the one they’d take. Thus, the next month and a half would be spent navigating the rough waters of the Antarctic Sea, traveling nearly halfway around the world in the process. Several of the colonists perished along the way, which would be a great loss for the crew and passengers, who’d become quite tight knit due to spending months together, but alas, they had no choice but to press on.
The light at the end of the tunnel was coming, though, as by mid August the west coast of New Prussia became visible. This was near the southwest corner of the island, which was rugged and carved into numerous fjords, so after a brief landing to catch some fresh air they’d turn north and traverse the west coast of New Prussia. A few hundred miles later and the coast opened up into a large body of water, which they presumed to be the entrance to the Cook Strait. They’d hug the south shore, as the north wasn’t visible at this point. The coast opened up into a large bay, one that both provided shelter from the rough winds and waves of the strait and could hold a good site for a settlement. As it turns out, that was just the case, as the head of the bay had a decent harbor and a good amount of land for settlement. The crew and colonists were tired of the sea, and while this wasn’t the best location, it was good enough to become the first Prussian colony in Neuseeland. Thus, on August 30th, 1836, the settlement of Königsbucht was founded, and German Neuseeland was born.
I was originally going to make this one update, but as it kept getting longer and longer I decided to split it up into two. The second update should be out within the next week, as colonization is a subject I’m very interested in (as you guys should know by now). After that update, I will do an overview of the four countries comprising the territory of OTL’s Australia. Thus, part one of my New Zealand retcon has reached its conclusion, but rest assured that I will be back soon.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 140: Neuseeland 2/2​

In this part we resume the story of German Neuseeland, going from the founding of Königsbucht up until the middle of the 20th Century. After the foundation of Königsbucht, the settlers went about gathering their bearings, with some going out and surveying, some beginning to build basic infrastructure like a townsite and dock and others put to work clearing the land and farming. The settlement had the sea to the north and mountains immediately to the east, but the south and west had some flat land that could work for agriculture. The crew negotiated with the local Maori about purchasing the surrounding land, though the differing concepts of land usage and ownership between the two caused some trouble. After the negotiations with the Maori were done, the shipping crew departed to head back to Prussia, a voyage that would take months to complete. Before they even returned, though, a second party had been sent out to establish another settlement. They would arrive in the spring of 1837, settling on the north side of the Cook Strait at Prinzenshafen. Further colonies would be founded across the islands at Zwillingshäfen, Großebucht, Parirua and Neu-Danzig over the next decade. Due to the vast distance, it would be tough to get people to move to the Neuseeland colony rather than going to somewhere closer like America or even South Africa. The Prussian government and the Prussian South Seas Company from the last update would thus pull two pages out of the British playbook. First, they’d send convicts who’d committed low-level crimes (mainly petty theft and failure to pay off debts) to the colony, where they’d work for the South Seas Company as indentured servants for several years before gaining freedom, being allowed to either stay in Neuseeland as a free colonist or return to Prussia. Due to the vast distance, most convicts who’d finished their sentences would stay in the colony permanently, many going on to become prosperous in this far off land. The second was for the Prussian government to pay for the voyage of settlers to Neuseeland, so that it’d be worth going there rather than the aforementioned closer destinations. With the surge in German emigration during the mid 19th Century, even a small fraction of German emigrants going to Neuseeland would equal thousands of new settlers per year. As anyone who left through a Prussian port (mainly Hamburg, but also Danzig, Konigsberg, Bremen, Lubeck and Rostock) would get cheap passage to Neuseeland and word of the opportunities found in the colony spread, the rate of immigration to Neuseeland reached 10,000 per year by 1860, just two decades after the colony’s foundation. While this was a very significant amount of migration for such a new colony, it would only turn out to be the prelude to something much larger.
That something would begin when gold was discovered in the interior of New Prussia in the 1860s, sparking a massive gold rush. Tens of thousands of prospectors rushed to the island in order to strike it rich, coming mainly from Europe and other parts of Australasia. While a lot of them left after the gold dried up (particularly those from other Australasian colonies), many stuck around and moved on to different endeavors. More importantly, though, the gold rush raised the awareness of Neuseeland as a viable destination for settlement, leading to increased interest in the colony among prospective emigrants in Central Europe, of which there were a lot. Between that and the increasing speed and size of ocean-going ships, immigration to Neuseeland surged in the late 19th Century.
In 1860 the European population of Neuseeland stood at 75,000, by 1870 it’d gone up to 230,000. That further increased to 510,000 in 1880, 920,000 in 1890 and 1.35 Million in 1900. When combined with the now rebounding Maori population and the growing number of mixed race people, the total population numbered about 1.45 million. New settlements had sprung up across both islands, such as Neu-Kolberg, Hauptkirche, Walbucht, Strandberg, Südberg and Timaru, among others, along with original settlements growing further into true cities. About 60% of the European population was Prussian, with the rest split pretty evenly between other Germans and non-Germans, mainly Slavs, Scandinavians, Hungarians and Jews. Prinzenshafen had become the largest city with a population of 160,000, though its growth potential was limited by the rough topography of the area. Königsbucht placed in second with a population of 90,000, having fallen behind Prinzenshafen due to not having as good of a natural harbor. Zwillingshäfen was the third largest city at 65,000 people, though it had more room to grow than the top two, while a few other cities had populations above 10,000. Other cities and towns like Breitmund, Elbe, Flachsbach, Titirangi, Hummerbucht and Fakatane had emerged in the late 19th Century as well, some having populations in the thousands by 1900. Outside of urban areas, Neuseeland had become a major agricultural exporter, particularly of wool, to the point where the colony had more sheep than people. The combined size of New Saxony and New Prussia was larger than that of Great Britain, and with the exception of the areas reserved for the Maori (more on that later), it had been pretty much fully settled by Central Europeans within a span of just a little over half a century. Apart from settlement, Neuseeland had gained a bit of a reputation as a far off, exotic destination for adventurers and wealthy tourists. Towns like Taupo, Neu-Konstanz and Königinstadt had already seen resorts spring up around them, with visitors both domestic and foreign coming for the mountain peaks, crystal clear lakes, lush Antarctic forests and geothermal springs. I could talk more about that stuff, but I’ve got other things to get to, such as the original inhabitants of the islands.
As mentioned in the previous update, the Maori had gotten into a nasty set of inter-tribal wars during the early 19th Century, estimated to have killed over a quarter of the Maori population. More importantly, though, the upheaval due to the wars was a big part of what made New Zealand a target for colonization by the Prussians. By 1860 there were already as many Germans in the archipelago as Maori and by 1870 the Germans outnumbered the Maori significantly, especially in New Prussia, where the Maori population was quite small. The Maori were relegated to various reservations throughout the islands (mostly in the north), and even then if there were disputes between German settlers and the Maori, the colonial authorities would almost always side with the former. The colonial government also required that all schooling be done in German, rather than in Maori, which hindered the ability of many Maori to get education (though this also did apply to non-German Europeans). While the Maori weren’t screwed over to the same degree as, say, the Aboriginals in neighboring Terra Australis or the nomadic tribes in North America, it was still quite a raw deal for them. In spite of this, the Maori population began to recover in the late 19th Century, standing at about 75,000 in 1900, with another 25,000 of mixed Maori-European ancestry. Maori culture wasn’t going to go away, either, as aspects of Maori culture like the Haka made their way into general Neuseeland culture. The same went for the Maori language, as while it may not have been taught in school (and one could be punished for speaking it in school, as was the policy in many places IOTL regarding Indigenous or regional languages), many still spoke it at home or even in some formal settings like Church services (the Maori by this point had been largely Christianized, mostly becoming Protestant but with some Catholics as well). While the Maori may have been sidelined within their own homeland, they were still a proud people intent on keeping their identity.
Moving on to other matters, the first half of the 20th Century was a continuation of the rapid population growth seen in the late 19th. The population grew from 1.45 Million in 1900 to 2.045 in 1910, slowing down during the 1910s due to the Second Global War, as immigration fell off during the war and 20,000 Neuseelanders died fighting in the conflict. Even then, the population grew to 2.55 Million by 1920. Population growth picked up again in the 20s, going up to 3.35 Million by 1930. The economic difficulties of the 1930s put a damper on immigration and birth rates, and thus it only grew to 3.8 Million by 1940. With the economy recovering by the 1940s, though, and thus population growth picked up, with the population in 1950 sitting at 4.52 Million. By this point, the majority of Neuseelanders were born in Neuseeland, though immigrants still made up a large share of the population. Prinzenshafen was still the largest city, having grown to 600,000 people by 1950. Its urban area had fully combined with that of Parirua, as well as extending up the large river valley on the north end of the bay. The city had garnered the nickname of “Triest an der Pazifische”, or “Trieste on the Pacific” due to the similar bayside location and hilly topography of both cities. Zwillingshäfen surged up to second place with 300,000, with Königsbucht falling to third at 250,000. The Maori population grew to 200,000 by 1950, while the Mixed-Race population skyrocketed to 225,000, due to the high intermarriage rate between Maori and Whites. The population ratio of New Saxony and New Prussia stood at about 3:2, due to the North having more Maori, more arable land and the two largest cities.
At this point, it’s probably worth talking about the political status of Neuseeland. In 1900, Neuseeland remained a colony of Prussia, though many non-Prussian Germans and Europeans had moved there (about 1/5th of the White population being non-German, the largest of those being Poles). With a rapidly growing population and a vast distance from Europe, Neuseeland was bound to gain independence at some point, albeit with strong ties to Prussia. Talks were already underway for independence upon the outbreak of the Second Global War in 1911, and when the war ended in 1916, independence for Neuseeland was pretty much an inevitability. After the Treaty of Zurich was inked in May of 1916, the Prussian government and Neuseeland colonial administration immediately got to work on the terms of independence. Neuseeland would become a Constitutional Monarchy with the Prussian king as a figurehead. The real power would lie with the newly formed Reichstag of Neuseeland, headed by the Chancellor. Prinzenshafen, already the largest city and seat of colonial governance, would become the capital city of the new country. Neuseeland would also take over administration of the Prussian colonies in the Pacific, as they were much easier to administer from Neuseeland than from Europe. The flag would combine the black, white and red colors that had come to represent the Germans with the Southern Cross that many countries in the Southern Hemisphere used on their flags. The independence treaty would take a bit of time to draft, but by the end of 1916 it was fully ready. Thus, on the 1st of February in the year of our Lord 1917, the Kingdom of Neuseeland would officially become an independent country.
And with that, the big New Zealand retcon is officially complete. I’ll get to work on the Australian update soon, as well as resuming work on UOTTC, but I just needed to get this out of the way. If you guys are disappointed with the retcon of the Nordic New Zealand (and the newly decided retcon giving the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the Germans, which I decided to do but didn't write about here), just know that New Zealand will be a Nordic colony in UOTTC once we get there. I’ll get my next update in one of those TL’s out by the end of the month for sure, but until then, have a good February and a happy Valentine’s Day.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 141: French Recovery​

The 1910s and early 1920s hadn’t been good to France. First, the Second Global War had been catastrophic, losing millions of men and getting nothing in return. Next, the economies crumbled in the years after the war, with inflation rampant, reparations payments to the victors crushing and good jobs scarce. This led to mass civil unrest, with Paris being occupied by rebels in 1922 and other cities seeing massive strikes, protests and riots. That’s not even to mention the loss of key territories like Alsace-Lorraine and Wallonia. It appeared as though France was facing the abyss, their glory days long behind and only a bleak future of decline and destitution ahead.
They were determined to avoid that fate, though. King François of France, though old in age (54 as of his ascension to the throne in 1921), had plans to bring France into recovery. After gaining the faith of the public by successfully repressing the 1922 revolt, François went about working on stabilizing his country. While a conservative and religious man, François was also a pragmatic figure due to his decades involved in politics as Dauphin, and was willing to work across the aisle with the Liberals or even the few Radicals that were present in the Estates General.
First, François would have to deal with France’s faltering economy. Between the massive destruction in the country’s north, the loss of key territories and the hefty war reparations put on by the victors, France’s economy was in the toilet during the half decade after the war. It was going to be a long, long road to recovery, but it was one that the French would have to take on. With Wallonia gone, French industry wasn’t going to return to where it was before the war, but France still had some industrial areas like Saint-Étienne, Picardy and the Loire Valley (the first two being OTL, the latter being due to Floridian cotton). Saint-Étienne and the Loire were still intact, while Picardy had been devastated by the war. Thus, a large economic priority for France was the rebuilding of Picardy’s industrial sector, which had been intentionally destroyed by the advance of German and Anglo-American troops in the region. The rebuilding began shortly after the war, and while there were hiccups along the way, Picardy’s industry was largely back online by the latter half of the 1920s. On a different note, with the Anglo-French rapprochement after the war, the French would attempt to renegotiate the war reparations payments they owed to the British and Americans. The French weren’t negotiating from a position of strength, so they knew they’d have to give some sort of concession to the Anglos, but it’d likely be worth it in order to significantly reduce the amount of war debt they had. After some back and forth, the French agreed to open their ports to Anglo-American ships in return for the cancellation of war reparations. While many in the French government (and public for that matter) were salty about giving the Anglos fleet-basing rights, they recognized the economic benefits of canceling war reparations that would take years to pay off. Thus, the French would get more economic breathing room, though they still had to pay reparations to the Germans. By 1926 the French economy had been mostly stabilized, and while things certainly weren’t great, their straits weren’t as dire as they’d been a few years prior.
Next was the cultural and political upheaval that came from France’s defeat in the war. After such a devastating and costly war, it’s no surprise that France was in for some rough times once it was all said and done, especially since they’d been humiliated. The late 1910s and early 1920s were extremely turbulent in France, as I’ve mentioned in a previous update on post-war France. This climaxed with the Paris Revolt in the summer of 1922, in which strikers-turned-rebels captured much of the city. While it was ultimately put down, tensions continued to simmer throughout the 1920s. Political extremism on both the radical Left and the revanchist Right thrived in 1920s France, and clashes between the two extremes continued to occur. The decade after the war saw both a growth in religiosity as people turned to the Church for support in the rough times and secularism as disenchantment with the establishment set in, the Church very much included. This led to a growing cultural clash between the religious, who made up a large share of the French population (particularly in the countryside) and secularists, who while a small fraction of the population punched well above their weight in terms of academics and culture (though not as large as IOTL due to the lack of the secularist French Revolution). Republicanism surged in popularity in the years after the war, and while a lot of prominent Republicans fled after the Paris Revolt was quashed, a good number remained in France campaigning for their cause. Even with the sizable Republican movement, the majority of Frenchmen still supported the Monarchy, especially after things began to improve in the mid 1920s.
This improvement wouldn’t last too long, though, as the global economy crashed in the fall of 1928. While in Britain and America it marked the end of a golden age, in France it was a return to the desperation of the years following the war. A lot of the problems from the immediate postwar period reappeared during the economic crisis, and once again France was on the brink. This economic crisis which would become known as the Great Panic would last well into the 1930s globally, and when combined with the postwar depression in France, the period between the end of the war in 1916 and 1935 would become known in France as Les Vingts Misérables, or The Miserable Twenty.
Fortunately for the French, things would begin to improve in the latter half of the 1930s. After nearly two decades of revolving door governments, stability would be achieved under the Chief Ministership of army officer turned politician Jean-Paul Le Tellier, who was able to negotiate with the disparate political factions in France and formulate a program to set the country in the right direction. For example, Le Tellier would begin the building of France’s welfare state, a major goal of France’s economic left, while also getting the support of the Church and social conservatives by ensuring the Church’s role in said welfare system, to the disappointment of the secularists. Le Tellier also worked to pursue a middle path in the economic sphere, supporting industrial and business growth and expansion while also ensuring that workers could strike and negotiate, among other things. By 1940 France’s standard of living had fully recovered to pre-war levels and economic growth continued throughout the 1940s. By 1950, the living standards in France had come to approach those in the victorious German States and Britain, and resentment towards said countries began to fade (though they didn’t totally disappear). France’s birth rate, which had slumped mightily during the Miserable Twenty, rebounded beginning in the late 1930s, though it wouldn’t go back to prewar levels (in large part because France was more urban in 1940 than it had been in 1910). King François passed away in July of 1942 at the age of 76, succeeded by his 48 year old son Louis, and while France wasn’t the dominant power in Europe like it had been in ages past, it was in a better spot at his death than it was when he ascended to the throne.
As has been the case in other updates in this TL, this was supposed to be one long update, but has grown enough to where I think it’d be better suited split into two. While this update has been on France proper, the next one will be on the rest of Latin Europe, much of which is tied to France through the Latin Bloc. That update should be out in early March. I’ll also continue to work on the French update for UOTTC, though that might take a while, considering my lack of knowledge regarding the French Wars of Religion and 16th Century European dynastic politics. Either way, I hope you had a happy Valentine’s Day, and I wish you guys well as we get towards the end of winter. For now, though, I must sign off.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 141: Iberia After The War​

Now that I’ve talked about France, I think it’d be a good time to talk about the rest of Latin Europe, specifically the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. Once the home of some of history’s most powerful and influential empires (the Spanish and Portuguese for Iberia and the Romans for Italy), the states of Iberia and Italy had now been relegated to playing second fiddle (though the Spanish and Portuguese still did have a lot of influence overseas). Both Italy and Iberia had been involved in the Second Global War from 1911-1916, with the war’s start in fact involving an Italian state. Spain, Cisalpina and Naples fought on the side of the Franco-Russian alliance, Venice fought on the side of the Germans, British and Ottomans, while Portugal and the Papal State remained neutral. The German-British-Ottoman alliance wound up triumphing over the French and Russians, with Russia descending into civil war and France into economic and political troubles. I’ll start in Iberia in this update before hopping across the Western Mediterranean to Italy in the next. So, without further ado, ¡vamonos!
After participating in the First Global War, the Portuguese (and thus Brazil and the Luso-Brazilian colonies) sat out the Second Global War, finding the potential upside not worth the prospect of fighting their only, much larger neighbor yet again. The Portuguese kept their heads down while the rest of Europe destroyed itself once again, with Spanish deserters and defectors fleeing in large numbers across the often porous border, many going further on to Brazil in order to escape potential capture and punishment. After the end of the war, Portugal was in a better spot than most of Latin Europe, but only by default, as it was still by and large a poor and agrarian country with a massive amount of emigration to its colony-turned-master Brazil. Even in the early 20th Century the majority of the population was illiterate and rural, and outside of Lisbon and Porto life for the average Portuguese person wasn’t that much different from what it’d been in centuries prior. Things would begin to change during the war, though, as while Portugal was neutral, it was still affected by it. For example, Lisbon and Porto were now two of the only safe ports in Western Europe, accessible by both sides of the war as well as by shipping from other neutrals. While there were obvious disruptions from having most of the continent (including their only neighbor) at war, the increased shipping traffic coming into Portugal was in some ways beneficial to the Portuguese economy. Namely, the influx of capital during the war prompted the creation of a domestic industrial base afterwards. Meanwhile, rural Portuguese heard of the opportunities found in the cities, and more began to leave the land and get urban jobs. This was a process that would take decades, but when combined with advances in technology that would make industrialization in Southern Europe more viable (more on that later), Portugal was beginning to shed its status as a backwater and become a modern nation.
Moving across the centuries-old border, we find ourselves in Spain. As mentioned in the intro, by the time we got to the 20th Century, Spain’s heyday was well in the rearview mirror. Far from the 800 pound gorilla it’d been in the 16th Century, Spain was now at best a secondary power in Europe, though it still held significant sway in the Americas through its dominions. The Second Global War only proved how past its prime Spain was, as Spanish troops didn’t perform too well when compared to their British or (especially) Prussian opponents on the Western Front. This was in large part because Spain lagged behind their more northerly opponents and even their French allies in technological and industrial matters. The only real industrial centers in Spain were in the far north in Catalonia and the Basque Country, both of which also happened to be regions primarily inhabited by ethnic minorities (more on that later), while most of the country was still rural and underdeveloped. As in Portugal, a majority of Spaniards were still illiterate heading into the 20th Century and there was still mass emigration to the now more populous American colonies. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish (and Spanish American) men died in the war, and their bloodshed was all for not, as Spain was on the losing side of the conflict. While Spanish territory in Europe was intact, the Commonwealth of America occupied New Spain after the war, along with Spain losing colonies in Africa. The Spanish economy was in tatters after the war, and civil unrest soared. Nationalism in the ethnic minority regions like the Basque Country and Catalonia (which, as mentioned earlier, contained most of Spain’s industry) surged, with separatist groups ballooning in size from where they were before the war. What little industry Spain had at this time was often crippled by strikes and labor disputes, as struggling workers demanded better pay and conditions, all while the industrialists were often struggling themselves. Political radicalism grew across Spain, particularly in the cities, where the disaffected masses were drawn towards radical politics on both ends of the spectrum. Pro-independence demonstrations in the Basque Country and Catalonia were commonplace, sometimes turning violent as authorities and demonstrators clashed. For example, Tarragona was occupied by separatist for three weeks in 1923, as demonstrations had gone south and turned into a flat-out rebellion, one which had to be put down by the Spanish military. Luckily for the Spanish, the rebellion didn’t spread and this would be the peak of ethnic separatism in Spain. Concerned by the rebellion, the Spanish king who I’m not gonna bother to name decided that some sort of compromise with the separatists was needed to keep the country together. Spain had many historical regions, but they hadn’t really been subject to any sort of internal treaty in a long time, despite several proposals throughout the years. Thus, after this scare, the king would call a convention to come up with a new map for Spain’s internal divisions. Having several large ethnic minorities meant that a unitary state wasn’t the best solution. After all, many identified more with their historic region than with Spain as a whole. Luckily, there was an existing model, and it wasn’t too far away. Over the past century and a half, neighboring France had evolved into a federal monarchy, with the traditional French provinces being maintained into the modern era, with some small changes here and there. This seemed to be an appropriate model for Spain to adopt, as it balanced national unity with local autonomy. Thus, in 1926, a new regional division in Spain was adopted, with the country being split up into 16 different Provinces, each with their own Provincial Capital. Notably, the Provinces were given the right to have multiple official languages alongside Spanish, which was soon done by non-Castilian speaking provinces like Catalonia, Navarre, Vasconia and Galicia. The nationalist appetite within parts of Spain seemed to be satiated, at least for the time being, and Spain’s political separatism seemed to be going into the rearview mirror by the end of the 1920s.
Spain still had other issues, though, notably their economy. I mentioned earlier that Spain was an economic backwater when compared with their Western European peers, with only a small amount of industry concentrated in only a few different regions, and poverty and illiteracy were widespread, especially in the countryside. In much of rural Spain, life continued as it had for centuries prior, with rural Spaniards living lives not too dissimilar from their ancestors. Things would begin to change in that regard during the decades following the war, though, as Spain began in full the process of industrialization and modernization. Education, for example, was made compulsory for children up to the age of 14 in 1928, an increase from the previous age of 10. Factories began to pop up outside of the traditional industrial regions in the north for the first time, though the north continued to be the most industrial part of Spain. This wouldn’t hit in full force for a few decades, as industrialization would be boosted by further technological advances like air conditioning (important for providing a more comfortable work environment in the hot Spanish summer), but it was a start nonetheless. By the 1940s, Spain’s economy was really beginning to take off, thanks to the influx of more skilled workers due to the aforementioned educational improvements and from other technological advances, as well as Spaniards that’d moved to other parts of Europe for work returning home. Spain’s industry started by serving the domestic industrial base, but later began to expand into Hispanic America, with Spanish industrial companies setting up offices and factories in South America by the 1950s and 60s. Speaking of Hispanic America, the growing living standards in Spain meant that immigration began to decline, as the move overseas wasn’t really worth it anymore when the living standards at home were similar if not higher. What I’ve talked about here in the Spain segment also applies to Portugal, where industrialization would continue, living standards would rise and emigration to Brazil and Africa would decrease during the middle of the 20th Century.
One more thing worth mentioning here is tourism. With Europeans becoming increasingly wealthy, they were able to afford more frequent and exotic holidays. Combine that with the advent of commercial aviation and you get a massive increase in tourism. For Northern Europeans, one popular vacation was to travel south for warm weather and sunshine. Spain and Portugal were about as warm and sunny as you could get in Europe, and thus saw an opportunity to cash in on tourism from further north. With miles of sandy beaches, historic cities and towns and stunning natural scenery, the potential for tourism in Iberia seemed endless. Thus, in the mid 20th Century, new seaside resorts began to be established along the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula, from the Algarve to Murcia, along with airports to take tourists in. Before long, tourists were coming in droves to get some Vitamin D and let loose. Visitors came from all over Europe, the largest number coming from Britain, along with a significant number of domestic tourists, who tended to stay at their own resorts away from the often rowdy foreigners. Resorts were also established in the Balearic and Canary Islands along with Madeira, with visitors often coming in by sea. Tourism would prove to be a great boon for the Spanish and Portuguese economies, with their resorts and attractions becoming famous across Europe. Between that and the growing industrialization in these two countries, things were beginning to look up in the Iberian peninsula. I’ll wrap up this trip through the Latin Bloc with an update on Italy, after which I’ll have to figure out something to cover. I hope you guys enjoyed this update, and I’ll have more content soon, but until then, I must say adios to you all.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 142: Viva Italia!​

To wrap up our tour of Latin Europe, we’ll take a quick hop across the Western Mediterranean to the Italian Peninsula. Nearly two thousand years ago Italy had been the heart of the Roman Empire, but those days were long gone. After the fall of Rome, Italy splintered into many small states, which would be the status quo for well over a millennium (aside from brief periods of reunification under the Eastern Romans/Byzantines and Ostrogoths in the 6th Century). During the 19th Century, though, Italy would begin to consolidate, eventually winding up split into four states, the over a millennium old Republic of Venice, the newly unified state of Cisalpina, the Papal State and the Kingdom of Naples. I’ll cover each of these states going from north to south, which means I’ll start with the only Italian winner in the Second Global War, the Republic of Venice.
The Republic of Venice was established in the year 697, making it one of the oldest countries in the world. With that came a storied history as a commercial and mercantile powerhouse in the Mediterranean, possessing trading outposts as far away as Tanais at the mouth of the Don River. After the peak of Venetian wealth and influence in the Late Middle Ages, the republic went into a slow decline as the discovery and conquest of the Americas made Mediterranean trade less important. Despite that, they still survived and remained a regional power, particularly in the naval department. Once the industrial revolution kicked off in the 19th Century, the Venetians used their mercantile prowess to hop on the industrial train early on, becoming the most industrialized of the Italian states (I mean, the Venetian Arsenal was as close to an industrial factory as you could get in preindustrial times). Vicenza, Treviso, Padua, Brescia and Verona were bustling with industrial activity, and the area across the lagoon from the Venetian Islands had also become a major industrial area. The industrial prowess of the Venetians was a major reason for their victory over the rest of Italy in the Second Global War, after which they acquired the territory between the Oglio and Adda rivers, which had been disputed with Cisalpina. This territory included the cities of Cremona and Bergamo, and was inhabited by the Lombards, one of Italy’s many regional ethnicities. Venice already had a sizable Lombard population, so their new subjects weren’t entirely foreign, but biting off a chunk of land that large was going to be tough to chew. While most Lombards in the conquered area didn’t make too much noise (even if they were dissatisfied), there was a separatist movement that would make themselves heard, occasionally getting violent, such as rioting in Bergamo after a separatist leader was arrested in August of 1926. Venice had also annexed more of Dalmatia, and while a lot of the inhabitants were Venetians or Romance-speaking Dalmatians, the annexed territories included a lot of Slavs. This was definitely more difficult than integrating the Lombards, as not only were they far more ethnically distinct, but the war had also started over Dalmatia. Illyrian partisans continued to fight even after the war was over, fleeing across the border when need be. Coastal cities like Ragusa, Spalato and Zara had long been part of the Venetian realm, so from there they could work to integrate the hinterland. Some of these integration policies were quite harsh, such as banning the use of Illyrian Slavic in schools and in political contexts. A number of Slavic Illyrians migrated across the border into the now smaller Illyria, to which the Venetian reaction was “hey, that works, thanks”. The Ancient Venetian Republic, once in a period of decline, seemed to be well set up for the 20th Century as a wealthy and industrialized nation. Now, let’s look at their defeated neighbor, the nation of Cisalpina.
In contrast to the almost ancient Republic of Venice, Cisalpina was a rather new country. What was now Cisalpina had previously been divided into a series of smaller states and statelets, being unified by the Savoyards during the mid 19th Century. Taking the name Cisalpina from an ancient Roman name for Northern Italy, the country would quickly become arguably the most powerful state in the Italian peninsula. While it wasn’t as heavily industrialized as Venice, the larger population meant that it overall had a higher industrial capacity. Turin and Milan were two of Europe’s biggest industrial cities, while others like Genoa, Florence, Bologna and Parma also had a fair deal of industry. The ultimate dream of Cisalpine nationalists was to unite the Italian peninsula, or at least the northern half of it, though it wasn’t looking particularly likely to happen. While Genoa and Tuscany had somehow chosen to join the union (something I might retcon once we get to the Maps & Graphics spinoff), not only did the Venetians choose to remain independent, but they handily defeated the Cisalpines in combat during the Second Global War, taking control of the disputed borderland. While Venice thrived after the war, Cisalpina struggled just as the French and Spanish did. Major Cisalpine cities, particularly the big two of Turin and Milan, were gripped by frequent strikes in the late 1910s and early 1920s, sometimes turning into clashes with the authorities. Inspired by the revolt in Paris, strikers and rebels occupied sections of Milan in the summer of 1922, taking several weeks to be subdued, with several other urban revolts occurring during that time period. As in France, things began to calm down around the middle of the 1920s, though the economic crash in 1928 would deal a good blow to Cisalpina’s recovery. After several more years of hardship following the 1928 crash, the recovery would begin in earnest in the Mid 1930s, and by 1940 Cisalpina was entering a period of economic prosperity, much as other Latin Bloc countries were. After a rough two decades, Cisalpina too was looking better heading towards the halfway mark of the 20th Century. This would usually be a segue towards me closing out an update, but we’re not quite there yet, as we’ve still got some more stuff to cover here. Let’s move down south and see what’s going on in the Papal State, shall we?
The Papal States, like Venice, was a state dating back over a thousand years, having been established in the mid 8th Century. The Papal States gave the Pope significant temporal power in European geopolitics in addition to the spiritual power coming from being the head of the Catholic Church. The Pope having an earthly domain comprising much of central Italy, including obviously the eternal city of Rome, made things complicated when dealing with the ambitions of Europe’s various great powers. Even Catholic monarchs and states would sometimes butt heads with the Papacy. I bring this up because the Papal States lost much of their territory during the 19th Century to Cisalpina in the north and Naples in the south, with Papal territory at this point being pretty much confined to Latium, becoming just the singular Papal State. Both Cisalpina and Naples had nationalist movements that wanted to unify Italy under their banner, but they would have to be content with just unifying most of their halves of the peninsula. The Pope wasn’t too happy with Cisalpina and Naples, who were both ostensibly faithful Catholics, taking big bites out of Papal territory, and he excommunicated both monarchs, though in both cases it was lifted before their deaths and they were allowed to partake in their last rites. The Papal State remained neutral in both Global Wars, not wanting to take a side in a war where Catholics fought each other. In fact, the Papal State would for the most part commit itself to diplomatic neutrality, only taking a side when Catholics were under threat. More of the interesting developments in the Papal State were internal, so let’s get to that, shall we?
While most countries in Europe had official state religions, the Papal State was unique in that, as the name would suggest, it was a full-on theocracy. In many countries the church (or churches) and state had close ties, in others they were completely separate, but in the Papal State, they were one and the same. The Church was responsible for pretty much all of the schooling, medical care and social services within the Papal State, as it had for centuries. Within the Papal State, there were differing views when it came to the status quo and how the country’s governance should change in the future. First, the Traditionalists in the Papal State preferred the maintenance of Papal and Ecclesiastical authority within the country, not only because the Pope was the Vicar of Christ, but because it’d been a workable status quo for centuries, and why fix something that isn’t broken? Next were the Reformists, who seeked to synthesize traditional Papal governance with the Enlightenment ideals of popular representation that had become popular since the late 18th Century. For example, the Reformists desired the creation of a popularly-elected Parliament to handle the temporal affairs of the Papal State, while the Pope and Clergy handled the spiritual matters. Traditionalists and Reformists would often debate and discuss their worldviews, with a Conservative faction forming as a synthesis of the two sides. That’s just covering those within the good graces of the Church, though, as there were also the Radicals who wanted to overthrow the Papal government and create a new, secular Roman Republic. The Radicals were suppressed by the government for obvious reasons, but they did manage to attract a noticeable following within some aspects of society, though they were still a small fraction of the population. There were also non-Catholics within the Papal State such as non-Catholic Christians and Jews. Non-Catholic Christian, such as the Orthodox or various Protestants, were mainly foreigners who were living in the Papal States for diplomatic purposes. As a result, Orthodox and Protestant churches were allowed to operate within the city of Rome, though they were strictly for use by foreigners and weren’t allowed to proselytize to the locals. There was also a long-standing Jewish community within Rome, whose status had varied between mere tolerance and total persecution depending on who was in charge. Roman Jews had been confined to the Roman Ghetto, being barred from living elsewhere. The status of the Jews became wrapped up within the aforementioned political debates, with debates about the ghetto and religious practice occurring within the Papal State’s government. These debates would fade over time, though, as the growing emigration of Jews from Europe meant that many of Rome’s Jews were leaving the Papal State of their own volition, mainly headed to places like the Commonwealth of America that provided full religious freedom. With my discussion of religious minorities within the Papal State, it’s worth reiterating that the vast majority of the Papal population were faithful Catholics perfectly content with Papal governance, even if many of them wanted direct representation in said governance. Whether that will remain the case as we go further along remains to be seen.
In other news, the Papal State’s economy was by no means disconnected from the trends that had swept the rest of Europe. Rome had become a major rail hub in Italy, with lines headed north towards Cisalpina and Venice and south towards Naples. The new city of Ostia, founded just downstream from the ancient one from which it took its name, became a major trading port connecting the Papal State to the rest of the Mediterranean, alongside smaller ones like Anzio and Civitavecchia. Industries to serve the domestic market began to pop up around Rome, run by small tradesmen rather than large conglomerates, as fit into the economic model preferred by many Catholics. While the Papal State’s economy wasn’t as wealthy as northern Europe or even Cisalpina and Venice, the Papal State was by no means impoverished. I’ve wrote enough on the Papal State for now, and as a Catholic myself I’m getting worn out on toeing the line when it comes to discussing the Papal State, so I think now’s a good time to get to the final of the four Italian states, the Kingdom of Naples.
Dating back to the 13th Century, the Kingdom of Naples, like the rest of Italy, had long been under foreign influence. Whether it be the French, Aragonese or Spanish, Naples was often the subject of foreign powers despite its considerable size, even being directly ruled by Spain for a while. While it was now independent, the ties to larger powers continued, as Naples was part of the French-led Latin Bloc (which also included Cisaplina and Spain). This wasn’t without its benefits, though, as Naples would receive French investment and protection.
Investment would be well appreciated, as unlike the rather industrialized Cisalpina, Naples was a very agrarian country, with vestiges of the feudal system surviving even into the 20th Century and the only major industries existing around the capital. Neapolitans emigrated en masse during the Late 19th and Early 20th century, with millions leaving for The Americas (primarily Brazil, La Plata and Florida) and many others heading to wealthier Latin Bloc countries like France or Cisalpina, as well as the Italian colony in Libya (a subject for a future update in its own right). With the economic crisis affecting the Latin Bloc in the 20 years following the Second Global War, Neapolitan emigration would continue, with millions more leaving for greener pastures during this time. Back home, organized crime surged as desperate citizens turned to the criminal underbelly of society to make ends meet, and while it’d be romanticized in future films (more on TTL’s movie industry in a future update), it certainly didn’t make the kingdom any better off. Among the population, demands for things like land reform (much of the kingdom was still organized into large estates, with many Neapolitan peasants being landless), political reforms like expanding the franchise and granting more powers to parliament and greater economic development rose during the rough times of the late 1910s and 1920s. Between the crime, economic hardship and political tension, the 1920s were not a fun time to be a Neapolitan. Still, things eventually improved, and by the mid 1930s the Neapolitan economy was beginning to experience considerable growth. The previously small industrial sector began to experience growth, expanding out of Naples to cities like Taranto (no, not that one), Bari, Reggio, Catania and Palermo, bringing greater job opportunities to the residents of said cities. Political reform was also pursued, as the franchise was expanded first to all veterans of the Second Global War and then to any adult man in 1934 (the ladies would have to wait). The power of the traditional nobility began to decline around this period as well, not because of any sort of political action, but simply due to modernization, as machines began to replace fieldhands and urbanization accelerated. With growing economic opportunity at home, overseas emigration began to taper off, though Neapolitans would continue moving abroad in large numbers for decades, particularly once a certain resource would be discovered over in Libya a decade or two down the road. While organized crime remained an issue, its prevalence decreased as economic prosperity and opportunity increased, and some mafiosos even became involved in legitimate enterprises. While Naples did remain poorer than most of Europe, it was starting to make the first steps towards prosperity and modernization, and while it did still have a long way to go to match its more northerly contemporaries, there’s no way to start but to take one’s first steps.
After a rough post-war period, things were beginning to look up in the Italian Peninsula. From the mountains of Lombardy to the Venetian Lagoon, down to St. Peter’s in Rome and the dramatic coastline of Campania, Italy was finally climbing out of its post-war slump into a future that looked bright. Whether things turn out that well is yet to be seen, but either way, we haven’t seen the last of Italy in this TL. Viva Italia!

 

[Gabingston]

Part 143: Lights, Camera, Action!​

As you may have noticed, I haven’t done a lot of culturally focused updates in this series. Most have revolved around geopolitics or economics, with less attention paid to the culture of this world. I’m planning on changing that, though, as several updates I have planned will be focused on the culture of the world of EC/FC. I’ll start off with this world’s film industry, as with technology advancing at a by and large similar rate to our world, cinematography is still going to emerge. Enough with this intro, how about we dive right into this world’s film industry, shall we?
Theater and acting in the Western world has a long, long history, going back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans. While ancient theater traditions largely died with the end of Classical Civilization, Western theater reemerged in the High Middle Ages, before flowering even further during the Early Modern Period. Theater continued to thrive through the centuries, right up until where we begin our story today.
After the invention of photography around the middle of the 19th Century, inventors seeked to create a device that could film events as if they were happening in real life. After decades of work from various people, success was achieved at the turn of the 20th Century, with the first motion picture recording coming just as the 19th Century was coming to a close. The first decade of the 20th Century would see rudimentary and primitive short films made, but things would really begin to get interesting in 1911, when the Second Global War would kick off.
The Second Global War both interrupted and spurred the development of filmography. Interrupted because many of those who had been working on filmography volunteered or were drafted to fight in the war and thus couldn’t continue with their work, and spurred because footage of the war was in high demand, both for propaganda and for future historical preservation. While film wasn’t that widespread yet, video footage of the war would be shown in whatever venues could support it, as well as being saved for the future. After the war, filmmakers who made it out alive came back to their own hobby/profession and resumed work (if they weren’t too traumatized to work, that is). The 1920s saw an explosion in the popularity and prevalence of film, particularly in the victorious countries, where people had more disposable income than ever to spend on entertainment. Cinemas opened left and right, from the biggest of cities to small towns, and movie studios popped up to cash in on the new trend.
The largest film industry in the world was the Anglophone film industry, due to the wealth of the Anglo countries and the massive population of the Commonwealth of America. The largest centers of film production in the Anglosphere were London, New York and San Francisco, with smaller ones in Manchester, Edinburgh, Mount Royal, Chicago, and Port Jackson. Even colonial cities like Manila, Calcutta and Hong Kong began to produce films, leading to the future growth of cinema in those regions after independence. British and American films began to make bank at the box office, and film actors/actresses became some of the most well known people in the Anglosphere. One couldn’t think of San Francisco without thinking of the silver screen (well, that or the Imperial Pacific Fleet, which was based there). In second place was the German film industry, primarily based in Berlin and Vienna with smaller productions in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Neuseeland. The German states had a similar era of prosperity after the war to the Anglosphere, which enabled people to enjoy more luxuries, like movies. While being one of the first places to produce motion pictures, the Francophone film industry fell to third place due to the rough economic conditions in the country from the late 1910s to the mid 1930s. Paris was obviously the beating heart of Francophone cinema, with Richelieu and Marseille being secondary sites. With the prestige of the French language, though, French cinema was often highly acclaimed and, well, prestigious. Other countries like Russia, Japan, Spain/Hispanic America, Portugal/Brazil, the Italian states and China also had film industries, some of which would become much larger with time.
Films weren’t just limited to the locations of their studios, though, as other locations would become popular for filming. For example, the French film industry loved filming along the Mediterranean, particularly in Provence, with coastal towns like Toulon, Saint-Tropez and Cannes becoming deeply associated with French cinematography. This was true of other regions’ film industries as well, as the Germans loved filming in the Alps and along the Austrian Riviera. In the Anglosphere, there were a ton of beautiful and/or luxurious locations that were mainstays in cinema, from the quaint English countryside to the towering peaks of the Rockies.
As time continued to march on, filming technology advanced by leaps and bounds. While films in the early 20th Century were silent and black and white, audio was introduced en masse beginning in the 1930s. The 1930s were also when the first color films began to hit cinemas, though they wouldn’t become the majority of films for another two decades or so. Animated pictures also began to grow in popularity, both in the forms of hand drawings and stop motion. While animation started with short films lasting only a matter of minutes, animation studios soon became more ambitious and started producing feature-length films.
Speaking of feature-length films, I haven’t gone over what these films were about? What were the popular subjects and genres in cinema during the early-mid 20th Century? Well, there were a variety of things that movies in this time period liked to portray. First were the universally appealing subjects of love and romance. Whether in the form of comedy, drama or tragedy, romantic films were always a surefire way to rake in the big bucks at the box office. The subject of love and romance definitely extended to sex, as while few if any films contained explicit sexual material (which would be more trouble than it was worth, for obvious reasons), many romantic films had noticeable sexual undertones, which could sometimes land the directors in hot water. Another popular subject was war, as the recency of the Second Global War made films about said conflict very salient, particularly in the victorious countries. Countries that lost the war often turned to past victories for their patriotic films, such as French films about the First Global War and earlier conflicts. On a related note, films about historical events were quite popular, once again tying into the use of films as patriotic media. For example, the French made movies based on Joan of Arc and France's great monarchs, the Germans on the victory over the Romans at Teutoburg Forest and the Americans about the Pilgrims and Jamestown. The interest in historical cinema extended to films on Religious and Mythological subjects, such as Biblical stories from both Testaments and retellings of ancient myths, mainly Greco-Roman but sometimes from other sources too. Regardless, films based on historical or mythological events proved to be successful on the silver screen. Of course there were other genres of film that were successful, like action, mystery or children’s cinema, but I have neither the time nor interest in delving into those topics.
From its humble origins at the turn of the 20th Century, by mid century the film industry was a giant, pulling in massive revenues annually and with its actors and directors being among the most recognizable people on the planet. With advancing technology and immensely talented and creative people behind the scenes, the future of cinema looked bright indeed. I may eventually do a second update on the film industry as we head into the latter part of the 20th Century, but I think this is good for now. I’ll have another update in the works soon after this one, and I’ll also put some work into UOTTC, but until then, I wish you guys a great day and a belated Happy Easter!

 

[Gabingston]

Part 144: Going For Gold​

For the second in a series of culturally-focused updates I’m putting out, I return to the world of athletics. My first update on sports, Part 91, came out two and a half years ago in late 2020, so I think it’s about time I return to this subject. Athletics has both similarities and differences from OTL, which I will explore in this update. So, without further ado, let’s look at TTL’s sports scene.
Let’s start off with some of the regional sports scenes. First, the Commonwealth of America. With its massive population and even more massive economy, it’s no surprise that the COA had massively popular and influential sports leagues. For example, the American Batonball Association (TTL’s Baseball) had 24 teams by 1950 spanning from coast to coast (thank you, commercial air travel), with over 100 games played by each team per season. Batonball stadiums held tens of thousands of spectators and were often centerpieces of their respective cities. This was true of other sports as well, such as Football (very similar to OTL’s Association Football), Rugball (TTL’s Rugby/American Football) and Ice Hockey (which could go under a different name ITTL, but I can’t think of one at the moment. Suggestions would be welcome), which all had large and popular professional leagues that drew in tens of thousands of spectators per match. It wasn’t just professional sports that were big draws, though, as university sports also had a large following (sometimes even more devoted than for the pros) and even high/secondary school sports were very popular, especially in towns where no pro or college sports teams played.
Other countries and regions also had professional sports leagues, such as the English Football League, the pan-German Deutscherliga, French Ligue Premier and pan-Italian Coppa Italiana, which all became mainstays of their respective countries/regions’ cultures. Clubs and teams gained devoted followings, and legendary rivalries formed between them. Individual sports were also popular, such as Tennis, Boxing and various winter sports in areas where the climate was suited for it. Just as the top players in the various team sports became famous celebrities, so did the top tennis players, boxers and skiers. Speaking of skiing, commercial ski areas began to grow in popularity with the advent of things like ski lifts. Before long the Alps, Scandes and Appalachians were home to world-class ski resorts that could host thousands of skiers. One couldn’t say the names “St. Moritz”, “Lillehammer” or “Tremblemount” without thinking of some fresh white powder (no, not that). While the Alps, Scandinavia and Appalachia were the places with the most ski areas during this time period, skiing spread to pretty much everywhere snow fell during the winter, such as the Rockies, Patagonia, Neuseeland and Japan. I’ll get back to skiing soon enough, but I’ve got other things to talk about, such as a certain ancient tradition that was revived after the devastation of the Second Global War…
After the Second Global War, the Ancient Greek Olympics were revived in order to provide a more productive and less bloody form of international competition than the war that had just consumed the world. The first games in 1920 were of course held in Greece, specifically in Athens, an obvious callback to the ancient games. The second games took place in Berlin four years later, held during the post-war golden age in Germanic Europe. In 1928, the Olympics came to Paris, helping to revitalize France during their post-war misery. After the Paris games, the Olympics were expanded to include a separate Winter Games in even-numbered off years, with the first Winter Games being held in Zurich in 1930. I covered all that in my first sports update, but now it’s time to move further on in time. I was going to write about each location that hosts, but for the sake of expediency, I’ll just do a list instead for all of the games up to 1970.
SUMMER GAMES:

• 1932: London
• 1936: Tokyo
• 1940: Moscow
• 1944: Amsterdam
• 1948: Chicago
• 1952: Madrid
• 1956: Rio de Janeiro
• 1960: Constantinople
• 1964: Port Jackson
• 1968: Lisbon

WINTER GAMES:

• 1934: Mount Royal
• 1938: Vienna
• 1942: Oslo
• 1946: Milan
• 1950: Boston
• 1954: Grenoble
• 1958: Nagano
• 1962: Sarajevo
• 1966: Tacoma
• 1970: Munich

By 1960, the Olympic Games had expanded from just the heart of Europe to become a global affair, with America hosting three games, Japan two and Brazil one, as well as the bi-continental city state of Constantinople. As the games grew in scope and scale, more and more countries began to be represented at the games. What started as mostly a European affair now had athletes coming from all continents and races (for lack of a better term) all competing for gold and glory. In addition, hosting the Olympics could be a real boon for the city in question if they played their cards right. Put on a good show, and your city’s prestige would go up a good deal. Granted, hosting the games posed its fair deal of challenges, as you’d have to shut down an entire city for weeks on end, not to mention the copious amounts of money that would be spent on facilities like venues, hotels and infrastructure. While host cities in this era tended to be pretty efficient and resourceful (in large part because many of them were megacities that already had most of the infrastructure they needed), whether that would remain the case with Olympic host cities into the future is an open question. Now, how about we limit the scope of an international athletic competition to one sport but expand the scope from one city to an entire country?
Seeing the success of the Olympic Games, the governing body for Association Football that I won’t bother to name decided to start a competition of their own. Named the Prix du Monde (or World Prize), this competition would be hosted in various cities across its host country and pit teams representing different nations against one another in a tournament to see who’d come out on top. The first Prix du Monde took place in France in 1934, with Prussia following in 1938 and Britain in 1942. 1946 had the three Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden host together, as each of them was too small to host it on their own. The Prix went overseas for the first time in 1950 as La Plata hosted, followed in 1954 by the Commonwealth of America. The Prix went to Russia in 1958, Brazil in 1962 and a joint Italian bid in 1966. Finally, the Prix came to Spain and Portugal in 1970. As with the Olympics, the Prix du Monde was a massively popular global event, with hundreds of millions of people watching or listening to the matches, with the final in 1970 between La Plata and Prussia coming close to an audience of a billion. Other sports like Rugball, Batonball and Ice Hockey established their own global competitions, and while they wouldn’t draw quite as many people as the Prix du Monde, they too would become very popular events in regions where they were played (either that or they were represented in the Olympics).
In the mid 20th Century, athletic competitions surged in scope and popularity. More and more countries sent athletes and teams to go for gold, and those who won brought glory to themselves and their countries. I’ll eventually come back to sports and athletics in the future, but for now, I’ve got other stuff to get to, both in this and in my other TL. Take care, guys, I’ll see you next time!

 

[Gabingston]

I know I've stated this before, but I'm restating it so it can be threadmarked. If I am ever banned from this website, I will be continuing both this and my other TL on alternate-timelines.com. It is the only AH.com alternative that I am aware of, and I'm confident that I wouldn't be the only AH.com refugee on the website. I will copy/paste this into my other TL's thread.

Home | alternate-timelines.com

Visit our forum at: alternate-timelines.com

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[Gabingston]

Part 145: Mitteleuropa 2.0​

In June of 2020 I posted an update on Mitteleuropa, the German economic and political bloc that formed after the Second Global War. Soon after that update, though, I decided that I’d made it a bit too OP, and while I didn’t touch it for a while, I eventually retconned it. Well, now I am going to touch on the German bloc in Central Europe once again. Through their military and industrial might, the Germans had managed to beat both the French and Russians to become the dominant power(s) in continental Europe. I’ve done Mid 20th Century updates on the French, Russians and the Anglo-Americans, so it’s about time I do an update on Germany (Neuseeland notwithstanding).
To start this, I’ll talk about the three smallest of the German states, those being Alsace-Lorraine, Rhineland and Switzerland. The first two of these states owed their existence to the Global Wars, while the last of them had been an independent country all along. Rhineland was split off from Bavaria after the first war., while A-L was split off from France after the first. Both of these states occupied the left bank of the Rhine, as did their capitals, Straßburg and Mainz respectively. Apart from the capitals, there were other major cities in each country like Mülhausen, Metz and Diedenhofen in A-L and Koblenz, Luxemburg, Trier and Ludwigshafen in Rhineland. Alsace-Lorraine and Rhineland were both majority Catholic with large Protestant minorities, though religious tensions were kept low by both states having freedom of religion.
The bigger issue for A-L was the sizable French minority that had developed during the time it’d been part of that country. Many Francophones moved across the border into France after the war, and those that stayed behind feared reprisals from the German majority. Said reprisals did indeed come, an example being the government forbidding French from being the primary language for education, even in majority Francophone locales. This led to a mixture of further emigration to France and majority Francophone border towns demanding to rejoin France, demands that were denied. The Rhineland didn’t have those same linguistic issues, with nearly their entire population either speaking Standard German or various Germanic dialects that weren’t too dissimilar from the standard.
Economically speaking, both A-L and Rhineland were more industrially powerful than you’d think for countries of their size. For example, the Mosel River basin, which stretched through both countries, had sizable mineral deposits, notably of coal. Combine that with the industrious culture of the Germanic countries and you got a highly industrialized and productive economy. I’ll get more into German industrial might later on, but for now it’s time to head south along the Rhine into Europe’s mountainous haven of neutrality, that being Switzerland.
Switzerland originated in the Middle Ages as the Swiss Confederacy, a decentralized organization of small Cantons. While the country had expanded and evolved over time, it’d kept its loose structure up until the present. It was probably needed to keep the country together, as despite its small size, Switzerland was a multiethnic country. While most of the country was German, the western cantons were majority French, while the canton of Ticino was majority Italian. In addition, there were also the Romansh of the high Alps, meaning there were four main ethnic groups within the country. In an era of nationalism, which was often based on ethnicity and language, keeping this pluralistic hodgepodge of a country together would usually be a tall order, and, yet, they were able to do it. Not only that, but Switzerland would go on to become an incredibly prosperous country, with Switzerland placing within the top five globally in terms of standard of living. Diplomatically, Switzerland practiced armed neutrality, not taking sides in conflicts but still maintaining a strong military in case someone did attack them. The Swiss stayed neutral in both global wars, avoiding the devastation that they wrought in the rest of the continent. After the war, the Swiss joined neither Mitteleuropa nor the Latin Bloc, so if there were a third war, they’d remain an island of peace in a sea of chaos.
Next, I’m going to talk about the non-German members of Mitteleuropa. Mitteleuropa, the economic and diplomatic bloc formed by the twin German powers of Prussia and Austro-Bavaria, comprised a large portion of Central Europe, uniting the core of the continent into a single market. This could be a mutually beneficial arrangement for both the two German powers, who’d gain political control over their surroundings and shield themselves from the Russians, and for the member states, who’d get German investment and the ability to move to the German states for education and/or employment. With the German states’ population growth slowing down as the demographic transition proceeded, they’d begin to draw upon their member states for labor, as they were earlier into said transition than the Germans were. By 1970 several million migrants (most of them being Slavic) resided in the German states, with Poles (whether from Poland proper or Polish Carpathia) alone comprising two million, in addition to the sizable Polish population born within the country (who were a majority in some border regions). In the member states, investment from the Germans flowed in, and while there was obviously already industry in these countries, industrialization took an extra leap forward as German companies opened new facilities in the east. Manufacturing was noticeably cheaper in Debrecen than in Düsseldorf or Białystok than in Bonn. With this influx of investment, living standards in East-Central Europe rose markedly between 1950 and 1970, and while it still lagged behind Western Europe, that gap was becoming narrower and narrower. Many non-German Mitteleuropans spoke German as a second language, and that number was even higher among the young, for whom German was a required subject in school to at least some extent. While they weren’t in the tier of London, Paris or Berlin, cities like Budapest, Prague and Warsaw became sizable tourist destinations, as they were every bit as beautiful and historic as their more famous counterparts. Outside of the big cities, the Carpathians grew in popularity as a destination for skiing and recreation, whether for locals or for skiers looking for something more off the beaten path than the establish resorts in the Alps, Pyrenees or Scandes. The cities of Krakow and Lemberg even began discussing possible Winter Olympic bids in the future.
Now that I’ve talked a good deal about the non-German member states, I think now’s an ideal time to get onto the big boys of the union, those being Prussia and Austro-Bavaria. I’ll start with the junior partner of the two, that being Austro-Bavaria, before moving north to Prussia.
Austro-Bavaria or Austria-Bavaria, officially the United Kingdoms of Austria and Bavaria, was formed after the First Global War as a way to strengthen each of their kingdoms against a possible Prussian threat. However, the policy of the Prussians was instead to reconcile with the newly formed state and invite them to join an economic and political union, even offering to put the union’s seat in the Bavarian city of Regensburg, the former capital of the Holy Roman Empire, as the founders of Mitteleuropa viewed their new union as a successor to the HRE. While Austria and especially Bavaria were still salty over the defeat in the war and the loss of regions like the Rhineland and Franconia (something I’m very strongly considering tweaking in a future Maps & Graphics adaptation, BTW), this did sound like a good enough deal, so they accepted the olive branch and joined into the new Prussian-led union of Mitteleuropa. Austria and Bavaria combined, however, were strong enough to effectively become the Cal Naughton Jr. to Prussia’s Ricky Bobby (please comment if you got the reference). This was only solidified by the joint effort between Prussia and Austro-Bavaria in the Second Global War, which put any remaining resentment Austro-Bavarians had towards Prussia firmly in the past.
As for some of Austro-Bavaria’s domestic politics, the new state would have an interesting structure. You see, the monarchs of Austria and Bavaria would remain as monarchs of their respective constituent countries, but neither would be the head of state of the country on whole. That would instead be the Chancellor of the new united Austro-Bavarian parliament, which would be based in Salzburg as a geographic and political compromise between Vienna and Munich (closer in distance to Munich but located in Austria, albeit along the Bavarian border). Below the two constituent states of Austria and Bavaria would be the provinces, which would act as administrative divisions both within the two states and at a national level. Under that would be smaller divisions like counties and towns/villages. In addition, Austro-Bavaria also possessed a colony in Northwest Africa, though I went over that in Part 123, so go there for more information.
Economically, Austro-Bavaria was a strong power in Central Europe. The western part of the country along or near the Rhine was the most industrialized part of the country, with cities like Stuttgart, Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Darmstadt being major industrial centers. With that said, pretty much every Austro-Bavarian city had some sort of industry. Many Austro-Bavarian cities became known for some sort of specialty that set them apart from the others. Salzburg was the political center, Vienna the cultural capital, Innsbruck the ski resort city, Triest the coastal resort city, Munich the place you’d go to get drunk in October, etc. While the living standard may not have been quite as high as in neighboring Switzerland, Austro-Bavaria was still by and large a pleasant place to live.
When it comes to demographics, Austro-Bavaria had a sizable non-German population, most notably in the south of the country. There resided the Slovenes, who made up the majority in the region of Carniola and a sizable minority in neighboring Carinthia. The Austro-Bavarian government had pursued a policy of Germanization towards the Slovenes, varying in intensity depending on who was administering it but always pushing for their assimilation. This had been an ongoing process in Carinthia for centuries, as Slovene had slowly but surely lost ground to German, and with official state backing of the latter, this process accelerated in that region. In Carinola, though, Slovene was more entrenched, as the whole region aside from some pockets of German was majority Slovene. Even here, Germanization proceeded throughout the 20th Century, particularly in urban areas like Laibach and Marburg. With German being a required subject in school (if not the official language of schooling), pretty much every Slovene who’d received formal education (I.E. pretty much anyone except for the elderly) spoke at least some German, though most still spoke Slovene at home. In addition, a sizable number of ethnic Germans had moved into Carinola, further Germanizing the region. With the majority of the Slovene population being bilingual, the Austro-Bavarian government figured that they’d done enough to Germanize the region, and with Slovene nationalism becoming more and more common, the province of Carinola decided to make Slovene a co-official language with German.
Outside of the Slovenes, the Austrian Littoral also had large populations of Italians (speaking various Italian dialects, most notably Friulian) and Illyrian Slavs (mainly Croats). Triest in particular was a multiethnic city, with Italians, Slavs and Germans all living in close proximity to one another. Triest, though, along with other Adriatic cities like Pola and Pflaum were favorite destinations for Germans looking to enjoy the warm and sunny (by Central European standards) climate, along with the beautiful Mediterranean scenery. As a result, the amount of Germanophones surged in the Littoral over the course of the 20th Century, both from migration and language shift among the locals. The Austrian Riviera became one of the most famous and luxurious tourist regions in all of Europe, particularly in the German-speaking countries.
Overall, Austro-Bavaria made an outsized impression on the world stage. Things like lederhosen, schnitzels and beautiful alpine scenery became popular images and stereotypes not just of Austro-Bavaria, but of the German states in general. However, in spite of this update now being over 2,000 words, we’re not quite done yet, as we’ve still got the big daddy of the German states left to cover, that being Prussia.
We’ve finally arrived at the last part of this update, and while I can’t say that it’ll be the best, it could very well wind up being the biggest (or at least the size of the Austro-Bavarian segment). Having been divided into small states for ages, the Kingdom of Prussia gradually unified the northern half of Germany over the 18th and 19th centuries. This was in large part due to the immense military prowess of the Prussians, who became known for having an incredibly effective army, to the point where the country became known as “An Army With A State”. While they initially had competition with the Austrians, the First Global War secured Prussia’s status as the masters of Germany, as well as one of the great powers. Not only that, but the Prussians expanded overseas, becoming a sizable colonial power in spite of their late start, particularly in the South Pacific, though they handed over the administration of the South Pacific colonies to the now independent Neuseeland. Meanwhile, at home, Prussia was possibly Europe’s most powerful country, with the French and Russians having been defeated and the British more focused on other matters than the continent. As the leaders of Mitteleuropa, Prussia got the benefit of control of land stretching from frozen Tallinn to balmy Triest. With such a vast swath of land, and their resources, under their control, Prussia’s economy thrived during the mid 20th Century. With the exception of the economic crisis of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Prussia’s economy experienced consistent growth, with only a few small recessions sprinkled throughout. The Rhine-Ruhr region was one of the largest and most productive industrial regions in the world, the only real competitors being North-Central England and the American Great Lakes. From Bonn in the south to Dortmund in the north, the boomerang-shaped corridor housed countless factories churning out massive amounts of industrial products. When combined with other industrial regions of Prussia like Silesia and Upper Saxony, Prussia was one of the largest industrial powers in the world. It wasn’t just in the quantity of industrial output that Prussia succeeded, though, as their culture of efficiency that came from their prestigious military bled over into their industrial sector as well. Prussian industrial products became known internationally for their quality, with Prussian industrial companies expanding globally. Much of this expansion, as talked about earlier, was within Mitteleuropa, which saw a boom of industrialization during the middle of the 20th Century. Industry already existed in the non-German Mitteleuropa states, an example being the mines and mills around the Carpathian capital of Ostrava, but with the common market industry exploded in East-Central Europe. The huge diaspora of Poles, Hungarians and other nationalities in the German States only helped this process, as workers who’d moved to the German states to work in the industrial sector could now move back home and aid in their own country’s industrialization. This process would continue beyond the scope of this update, which goes up to 1970, but by that year industry in the east was booming.
Speaking of diaspora, let’s talk about Prussia’s demographics, shall we?
Prussia’s population in 1970 numbered 80 million, one of the most populous countries in Europe. The largest city in the country was Berlin, the nation’s capital. One of Europe’s largest and most famous cities, nearly 10% of the country’s population lived in the Berlin metropolitan area, with the previously separate cities and towns of Potsdam, Oranienburg and Bernau now functioning as suburbs of the capital, connected via the vast public transit network and by high-capacity roads for carriages. Berlin Berlin was not the largest metro area in Prussia, though, as the previously talked about Rhine-Ruhr metroplex had a population of nearly 10 million, spread out between the seven or so major cities of the region plus the suburbs filling in the space between the city centers. Apart from Berlin and the Rhine-Ruhr, other major Prussian cities included the financial center of Frankfurt, the port cities of Hamburg and Danzig, the industrial cities of Leipzig and Dresden and the old Prussian capital of Königsberg, among others that I don’t have the time to mention.
With such a wide array of major cities, the Prussians would need fast and effective ways to connect them all. Enter two radical infrastructure projects that Prussia would pursue during the mid 20th Century. First was a series of high-capacity, high-speed intercity roads. With the rapid increase in the number of autocarriages (reminder: TTL's name for automobiles) after the Second Global War, the existing paved roads no longer sufficed for intercity auto travel. Thus, the Schnellbahn was born. These roads could carry multiple lanes of traffic in each direction without stopping, with ramps and bridges used to connect to the normal road network. The first segment was completed in 1929, connecting Potsdam to the western Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg (they'd originally planned to go right to the center of the city, but the citizens of the city didn't take kindly to it, so that plan was scrapped). Over the following years more segments were built around the Berlin area, and by 1940 a high-speed ring road around the city had been completed.
It wasn’t just in Berlin that Schnellbahn roads were being constructed, though, as roads to and within different cities were also being built. For example, the Rhine-Ruhr Schnellbahn was constructed during the 1930s, connecting all seven of the major cities. The Schnellbahn in the Rhine-Ruhr and in Berlin were also connected to each other by the mid 1940s, cutting travel times between Prussia’s two largest metro areas significantly. Soon the Schnellbahn system was being expanded to connect other Prussian cities, and by the middle of the 1960s Schnellbahn highways criss-crossed the entire country. Other countries would soon follow in building high-speed road networks (some of them having been thought up independently of Prussia), including the other Mitteleuropa states, whose networks were connected to that of Prussia, furthering the integration of the region.
It wasn’t just automotive transport in which the Prussians excelled, though, as the Prussians would enact innovative upgrades to their rail network. For decades tests had been conducted by countries ranging from the Commonwealth of America to France to Japan to create as fast of a train as possible. However, it would be the Prussians that would take the leap in creating an actual, operational high-speed rail line open to passenger traffic. In 1966, the Prussian government announced that they would upgrade the rail line between Berlin and the Rhine-Ruhr, the country’s busiest, into a high-speed line, with trains traveling at speeds up to 250km/h (155mph). Construction began the following year, and in 1971, the Berlin-Dortmund High Speed Rail Line officially opened, with stops in Hamm, Bielefeld, Hanover, Brunswick, Magdeburg and Potsdam. More lines would be built in both Prussia and the rest of Mitteleuropa over the following years, and other countries would soon develop high-speed rail lines of their own, but between the Schnellbahn and high-speed rail, Prussia would become known for having some of the world’s best transportation.
50 years after its foundation in the wake of the Second Global War, Mitteleuropa had become possibly the world’s most well-integrated and cohesive geopolitical blocs, and has inspired both the French and the Russians to found their own blocs. So far things were looking good in the heart of Europe, but a storm was brewing on the horizon. Would the so far 50 year peace in (most of) Europe be maintained, or would things go south as we headed into the latter part of the 20th Century? Only time will tell.

Member States of Mitteleuropa

• Prussia (Capital: Berlin)
• Austro-Bavaria (Capital: Salzburg)
• Rhineland (Capital: Mainz)
• Alsace-Lorraine (Capital: Straßburg)
• Hungary (Capital: Budapest)
• Carpathia (Capital: Ostrava)
• Ruthenia (Capital: Lemberg)
• Poland (Capital: Warsaw)
• Baltia (Capital: Riga)
• Estonia (Capital: Tallinn)

 

[Gabingston]

Part 146: Floridian Demographics in the Mid 20th Century​

The French colony turned country in Southeastern North America, La Floride, has been a main focus of this series in its nearly five year (dang does time fly) runtime (I mean, it is the “French Carolina” part of the title). I have done numerous updates on this country over the years, whether it be the growing French colony in the earlier days or the independent country later on. However, these updates have been mainly political in nature, as I don’t recall making an update focused on the culture of this interesting melting pot of a nation. That changes today, as in this update, I will cover the demographics of La Floride through the middle of the 20th Century.
What better place to start an update about Floridian demographics and than with the language the people there speak? With it having been over 300 years since the French began settling in the region, Floridian French had plenty of time to both diverge from the standard back home and preserve older features that were lost in the motherland. Most of the French settlers to La Floride came from the Atlantic-facing regions of the country from Picardy in the north to Gascony in the south, so while later immigrants from France came from all regions of the country, Floridian French drew its primary influences from dialects spoken in the north and west. Floridian French was also influenced to a lesser degree by non-French immigrants and settlers, particularly from Italy (especially in major cities like Richelieu, which had a very large Italian population). As mentioned a few sentences ago, Floridian French held onto some older features of French that had disappeared in the standard European variety. For example, the rolled R sound found in Spanish and Italian was also originally found in French, but shifted in Parisian French into a guttural, throaty R sound beginning in the 18th Century. While the guttural R became the standard in European French (though many in France, particularly native Occitan speakers, still used the rolled R), the rolled R retained its use in Floridian French, though some in the upper class, particularly in Richelieu, adopted a guttural R to sound more European (think some alternate Francophone version of the Transatlantic Accent). Another older feature of French that was lost in Europe but retained in North America was the pronunciation of the “oi” sound in words like “moi” and “toi”. While in France these had shifted towards “mwa” and “twa”, Floridian French kept the older pronunciation of “mway” and “tway”. Floridian dialects also varied by region, class and ethnicity as well. For example, the accents of the Atlantic coast and Gulf coast were noticeably different due to being separate settlements during the colonial era, along with urban dialects specific to Richelieu and New Orleans. Afro-Floridians also possessed their own patterns of speech separate from their White counterparts, ranging from standard French with an accent on one end to the creole language of Floridian Patois (think OTL’s Louisiana Creole) on the other, with several varieties in between. There’s obviously a lot more to Floridian French than just this, but I’ll leave it here, as I am neither a linguist nor am I fluent in French (or any foreign language, for that matter, I’m your typical monolingual Anglo).
Now that I’ve talked about the language, I supposed I should talk about the people who speak it. Floridians came from a variety of backgrounds, from the descendents of the early French settlers to more recent immigrants to Afro-Floridians descended from those who’d been brought over against their will to the Amerindians whose ancestors had been there all along. The majority of Floridians, about 65% to be exact, were White Floridians of full or mainly European descent. Being the primary ethnic group in the country, White Floridians were found pretty much everywhere, with their population ranging from a large, dominant minority in some areas to almost 100% of the population in others. The largest chunk of European ancestry in La Floride unsurprisingly came from France, as almost all White Floridians had some degree of French heritage, most of them a strong majority. Even in the Mid 20th Century hundreds of thousands of French immigrants lived in La Floride, and many more had French parents and/or grandparents. While many more groups would add their own flavors to Floridian culture, the base would remain undeniably Gallic in nature. After that were the Italians. While Italians had been present in La Floride since the early colonial era, Italian settlement really only took off after the First Global War, with the peak of Italian immigration occurring between 1880 and 1910, as well a secondary peak in the 1920s. After the 1920s Italian immigration tapered off, and the second and third generation rapidly assimilated into Floridian culture, intermarrying with the native-born population at extremely high rates while leaving their impact on Floridian culture, particularly in cuisine (more on that in the next update). After the Italians it was a sizable drop to smaller White immigrant groups, as over 80% of European immigrants to La Floride through 1950 had been French or Italian. This 15-20% of immigrants were mainly from other parts of Catholic Europe like Poland, Germany, Ireland and Spain, as well as Catholic Arabs. There were also a small number of non-Catholic European immigrants, whether they be Protestant, Eastern Orthodox or Jewish (Floridian Jews numbered about 100,000 in 1970, 40% of them in Richelieu). The overall White Floridian population grew from 27.67 million in 1950 to 31.98 million in 1960 and 36.18 million in 1970, still growing steadily but with the year-to-year rate on a slow decline.
After that came Afro-Floridians, the descendants of those taken in chains to the Floridian colony. In spite of La Floride representing a small fraction of the total Atlantic Slave Trade, the lower mortality rate among Floridian slaves when compared with their Caribbean counterparts led to La Floride having one of the largest Black populations in the Americas. Afro-Floridians made up about 20% of the total population, or about 12 million people. The concentration of Afro-Floridians varied widely depending on what part of the country you were in. While some areas like the Appalachians and West were under 5% Black, others like the Îles du Mer (well, those that weren’t being swallowed up by the burgeoning Richelieu metroplex) and Mississippi Bottomlands were majority Afro-Floridian. Having been brought to the country in captivity to grow cash crops, Afro-Floridians were for a long time a mostly rural population, with urban areas being more associated with European immigrants. This was beginning to change, as with the mechanization of agriculture Afro-Floridians began to look for jobs in urban areas. Afro-Floridians, being poor and looked down upon by most Whites (and also many mixed-race Creoles, more on them later), were often concentrated in the least desirable areas of major cities, often poorly and shoddily built shantytowns. Correspondingly, Afro-Floridians often had the worst jobs, such as low-end service work. It’s worth mentioning, though, that not all Afro-Floridians were poor and marginalized, as some had become quite well-off and respected in spite of their skin color and cultural differences. The status of Afro-Floridians was beginning to become a hotly debated topic within Floridian society, and is definitely a subject for another time, so I’ll get back to that some time in the future.
While 20% of the population was Black, about 30% of the population had some sort of visible African origins. The other 10% of that equation (about 5.5 million people) were the Floridian Creoles, a mixed-race ethnic group of African, European and occasionally Amerindian origin. Emerging out of the plaçage system of colonial times, less pleasant means from the colonial era or more recent interracial marriages between Whites and Blacks (legal but often taboo), Floridian Creoles served as a middle caste between the White elite and Afro-Floridians. Creoles often owned land or businesses, and could sometimes become as or more successful than the common Petit Blanc White Floridian, which became a source of tension between the two populations. Even then, marriages between Creoles and Whites did occur (and were less taboo than White-Black marriages), and many Creoles emphasized the European aspect of their heritage over their African one, though this was by no means universal. Past marriages between Whites and Creoles meant that a good number of White Floridians had some small degree of African admixture, not enough to be outwardly noticeable but enough to become family lore and later appear in DNA studies once those become a thing further down the line.
The final 5% of the population, or about 2.75 million people, were of a variety of different origins. The largest were Florida’s indigenous population, whether in the form of tribal populations like the Mascoqui, Salagui, Tchactas and Chicachas or the Métis, which technically referred to those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry but had also become a cultural label for Amerindians who’d assimilated into mainstream Floridian culture, regardless of their admixture. Between the tribes and the Métis, the Indigenous population in La Floride numbered about 1.75 million in 1970, not as large as in countries like Mexico or Peru but still a noticeable minority. In addition, due to the high rate of intermarriage with and assimilation into the general Floridian population (especially for the Métis and for those who lived outside of the reservations), many Floridians who weren’t identified as Indigenous or Métis nonetheless had small amounts of Amerindian ancestry, though not large enough to be visible.
The next largest share of this last 5% were the other type of Indians, those from the Subcontinent, specifically the former French colony in Southern India. After the abolition of slavery in the late 19th Century, some Floridian planters seeked to replace Afro-Floridian slavery with Indian indentured servitude, as had been done in the Caribbean by both the British and French. While this plan didn’t ever come to full fruition, it did lead to the establishment of a surprisingly large Indo-Floridian population. Most of the Indo-Floridians were Catholics, as Catholics were favored by the authorities, but a sizable minority were Hindu, making Hinduism the third largest religion in La Floride (just a tad smaller than Judaism in second). A second wave of Indians came to La Floride after the independence of the Deccan, mainly Catholics and Franco-Indians fearing reprisals from the Hindu majority. Between the earlier arrivals and the newcomers, the total Indo-Floridian population in 1970 numbered around 400,000, with 70% being Christian, 20% Hindu and 10% belonging to other faiths, mainly Islam and Sikhism. Richelieu was home to the largest Indian population in the country, with the Petite-Inde neighborhood being home to 60,000 Indo-Floridians, or 1/5th of their population.
Due to the long border and economic ties between La Floride and Hispanic America (mainly Mexico), a good sized Hispanic population had developed in La Floride, primarily along the Mexican border. While many of these blended into the general White Floridian population, about 300,000 Hispanics didn’t fit into any preexisting subgroup in the country. These were mainly Mestizos or Amerindians who nonetheless weren’t identified with the native Indigenous or Métis populations. Still, due to the common Latin Catholic roots of both nations, assimilating Hispanic immigrants wasn’t generally a huge problem for La Floride (nor was it for Mexico assimilating the smaller but still present Floridian population on their side of the border). The Chinese numbered about 100,000 in La Floride, making them the largest East Asian population in the country. While some had been brought over as fieldhands for a similar reason to the aforementioned Indians (particularly for rice cultivation), many Chinese wound up settling in major cities. For example, the Quartier Chinois in Richelieu had a population of 35,000, or over one third of the total Sino-Floridian population, complete with all the sights and attractions you’d expect from a Chinatown neighborhood. They’d mainly come from the south of the country, leaving from the port of Guangzhouwan, which had been a French trading port before the Second Global War. The remaining 250,000 people came from populations ranging from Muslim Arabs to non-Chinese East Asians, but they’re not large enough of a demographic to be worth discussing in detail.
Between all the different ethnic groups I’ve discussed, the overall population of La Floride in 1970 was 56.25 million, growing from 42.56 million twenty years prior. This made it one of the most populous countries in the Americas, behind the Commonwealth and Brazil and roughly equal with Mexico. Richelieu, the country’s once political and still cultural and economic capital remained the largest city, growing to a population of a tad under five million people by 1970, continuing to grow outwards into the woodlands, swamps and islands surrounding the city. Obcau, for example, had been mostly rural fifty years prior, but now was a densely populated urban area with roughly half a million residents, and this was a process repeated elsewhere throughout the urban area. The political capital of Villeroyale had overtaken New Orleans to become the second largest city in the country, growing to a population of 2.3 Million by 1970. The capital had grown to the point where it and the nearby city of Fort Toulouse had begun to merge, a process that would continue throughout the remainder of the 20th Century. Combine that with the relatively close city of Bienville, and a greater urban area was beginning to form along the central part of the Alibamons River, though once again that’d be a long-term process. New Orleans hung on in third place at 1.8 million, with its growth hampered by both a lack of adequate buildable land and a severe hurricane in the late 1960s (as IOTL). Three more Floridian cities had joined the one million club since 1950, those being Saint-Hyacinthe at 1.3 million, Ville-Marie at 1.1 million and Jolliet at 1.025 million, with several others coming close. 75% of the population lived east of the Mississippi River, due to its earlier settlement and greater utility for agriculture, though the area west of the Mississippi was now growing at a greater rate due to migration both internally and from neighboring Mexico. In addition, the Great Floridian Peninsula (or La Grande Péninsule in French) began to attract retirees from the Commonwealth, who came during the winter months to escape the cold. Tourists from the Commonwealth could stay for up to three months at a time, so it’d be common for retirees to leave at or just after Christmas and return just before Easter, missing the coldest months of the year. Speaking of that, I think now is the perfect time to talk about something I haven’t with regards to La Floride, that being emigration.
While Florida had always been a net immigration recipient, there were also a good number of Floridians who’d emigrated for better opportunities elsewhere. By far the largest emigration destination for Floridians was the giant to the north, the Commonwealth of America. Having a much higher standard of living than their own country, Floridians had been moving up north for decades, seeking better paying work and a brighter future. In 1970 about 1.25 million Floridian immigrants lived in the Commonwealth of America, largely in regions closer to the border and with a milder climate than, say, Laurentia. Floridian neighborhoods popped up in Commonwealth cities like Baltimore, Norfolk, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Losantiville (which I’m considering renaming), Rapidston (which I’m also considering renaming) and, of course, New York. The Little Florida neighborhood in Queens was the largest concentration of Floridians in the Commonwealth, with nearly 100,000 Floridians living in that one area. In addition, the border regions, especially those that had been annexed by the Commonwealth after the First Global War, had sizable Francophone populations, with the Acansa province being 15% French-speaking, largely descended from settlers who’d arrived before the annexation by the Commonwealth.
The second largest destination for Floridian emigrés was, to no one’s surprise, France. Wealthy Floridians had long traveled to France for education and to make connections with the European elite. With France’s economic golden age during the mid 20th Century, though, migration from Florida to France began to become more and more common among the general population, though many of them were French emigrants returning to their homeland. The number of native-born Floridians in France in 1970 was 150,000, of which 1/3rd lived in Paris and another 1/4 in the French Riviera, the warmest and sunniest part of France that felt a little bit like home for Floridian emigrants. 100,000 Floridians lived across the border in Mexico, which while less than the amount of Mexicans in Florida did prove that migration between the two countries was a two way street.
One more thing worth touching on here is religion. As with the rest of Latin America (which I’m counting Florida as part of), the country was mostly Catholic, with 88% of Floridians identifying as Catholics as of 1970, 45% of those being weekly or more mass attendees. Six percent of Floridians were Protestant, most of them being converts to American-style low churches, while one percent were members of other Christian sects (mainly Eastern Orthodox), adding up to a 95% Christian population in 1970. Four percent of the population were secularists who didn’t identify with any religion, with their beliefs ranging from a vague deism to full-on atheism (insert comment about fedoras here). Finally, one percent of the population followed non-Christian religions, which I talked about earlier and thus don’t feel a need to repeat.
Alright, I think that just about wraps this update up. I was originally going to do one update that covered both the demographics and culture of La Floride, but as it got long and longer I figured that splitting it up was a necessity. Meanwhile, this update passes the 3,000 word milestone on the number 3,000, which was something I couldn’t pass up. My updates are getting longer and longer, and while I’m not sure whether it’s due to me becoming a better writer or merely becoming better at using more words to say the same amount, it’ll sure help me if I ever have to write a college essay. The next update will primarily cover Floridian culture, as well as some other things that tie into it. That should be done by the end of the month, after which I’ll move onto other things both here and possibly in UOTTC. Until then, though, I must bid you guys adieu.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 147: Floridian Culture Through the Mid 20th Century​

For the second half of the Floridian update, I’ll now talk about the culture of the country up through 1970. I’ll have to get moving on into the latter part of the 20th Century at some point, but I just wanna get everything caught up first. While it wasn’t by any means the premier cultural power in the world, La Floride did pack a good punch in terms of cultural influence. From its French base, Floridian culture came to include non-French European (particularly Italian), African, Amerindian and even Asian influences. I feel like it’s about time to get into the nitty gritty of one of the most interesting countries in the Americas, so let’s start with something that a French-descended country would inevitably be known for, food.
With its mother country being a culinary juggernaut, La Floride already had a head start in becoming a cuisine powerhouse on its own. The French colonists in colonial-era Florida brought their own culinary traditions from their particular regions, which would mix and merge into the basis for Petit Blanc cuisine. The cuisine of La Floride would receive a massive amount of African influence due to the presence of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the colonial era, with the African captives bringing over their own culinary practices. Africans, even when in chains, would make a remarkable contribution towards the development of Floridian cuisine. Add in the influence of Indigenous food practices, and you get the formation of Floridian cuisine. The mixed-race Floridian Creoles in particular became famous for their cuisine, as their blend of cultural backgrounds showed through their food. This cultural blend was shown off famously through La Floride's soups and stews, which became some of the country's most famous culinary offerings. Gumbo, Jambalaya and Étouffée (all OTL Louisiana dishes, I know) were not only common dishes domestically, but also spread internationally via the Floridian emigrés from the last update. These dishes notably all contained bell peppers, celery and onions, which were a very popular combination among Floridian cooks and chefs, to the point where they got the nickname of the Holy Trinity.
Outside of soups and stews, there were still a variety of Floridian foods to talk about. One of these examples was the variety of pork products consumed in the country. With the woodlands that covered the eastern 2/3rds of the country being ideal conditions to raise pigs (in addition to a large feral pig population), pork was the most popular meat in the country. For example, Sausage, while most associated with Central Europe, was also a common offering in France, and that carried over to La Floride. Sausage varieties like boudin and andouille were widespread in La Floride, as they were in France, and other, more local sausages were also produced. Pork also served as the centerpiece of boucheries, where entire extended families would gather and eat a whole pig (sometimes a young piglet), along with other foods.
Other common ingredients in Floridian cuisine were various grains (particularly corn and rice), seafood (fish and crustaceans), other types of meat (beef and chicken especially), fruits (notably citrus), vegetables and a wide variety of cheeses (no s**t, Sherlock, of course a French-descended country loves cheese). Immigrants of course made a huge impact on Floridian cuisine too. The mass wave of Italian immigration led to various Italian foods becoming commonplace in Floridian cuisine, with Italian restaurants and groceries being commonplace across the country. The same was true for other immigrant groups, as Hispanic, Arab, German, Polish and Indian cuisine all had a decent presence in La Floride, moreso in the areas where those groups settled. With all of this added up, La Floride was one of the most culinarily rich countries in the world, and foodie tourists would unsurprisingly flock to the country in droves.
Since I’ve covered the eating part of Floridian cuisine, I might as well get to the other side of the coin and talk about their drinks. I’ll start off with the obvious beverage of choice for a Francophone country, that being wine. With the French being notorious for their love of Le Vin, it was no wonder that the first vines were planted soon after the colony was founded. However, the hot and humid climate was not conducive to the growing of old world Vinifera grapes, as diseases were commonplace and harvests were subpar. Not to worry, though, as La Floride had a variety of indigenous grape species, some of which were already being consumed by the natives. Early on the French began to experiment with using these species for wine, and it didn’t take all that long for the colony to begin producing its own wine with native grape species, with the Petit-Blancs in particular consuming a lot of homegrown wine (the Grand-Blancs preferred French imports). Floridian viticulturalists also began to experiment with hybridizing old and new world grape species, and while it took a good deal of trial and error, hybrid grapes eventually became commonplace in La Floride (and even in Europe once new world grape diseases crossed the pond).
In the mid 20th Century La Floride was one of the 10 largest wine producing countries, the majority of their production being of hybrids. Though production took place nationwide, regions like the Piedmont and Caquinampo Valley became known for their viticulture, as the milder climate made it easier for hybrids or even straight-ahead Vinifera to grow, and also made the landscape in these areas all the more pretty. Floridian hybrids also became utilized for viticulture in other parts of the world with similar climates, particularly Brazil. While wine critics may have favored more prestigious winemaking regions in the old world, Floridians were proud of their own viticultural tradition, and continued to consume their homegrown wines in large quantities.
However, that was not the only drink consumed by Floridians, as plenty of other beverages were commonplace. With a subtropical climate (full-on tropical in the far south) suitable for the growing of citrus (particularly along the gulf coast), citrus-based drinks were a common beverage in Florida, particularly in seaside resort towns. Another tropical drink common in La Floride was rum, as the country was a sizable sugar producer. While not super popular, Florida did produce beer, much of it linked to historical German, Irish and Polish immigration, all countries heavily associated with said drink (though Germany does produce a fair deal of wine as well). Floridian drinks were not just limited to alcoholic ones, as non-alcoholic beverages were also consumed to a large degree. Coffee and tea were the two most popular non-alcoholic beverages, with coffee being easily imported from the Caribbean and tea having been grown in La Floride since colonial times. Cafés and teahouses (oftentimes the same establishment) were widespread across the country, found in pretty much every Floridian town larger than a thousand people (and some that were smaller). Regular, unfermented fruit juice was commonly consumed as well, particularly by children or by members of Protestant sects that opposed alcohol consumption (though the latter often drank the aforementioned coffee and tea as well). Sweetened carbonated drinks, popular in the Commonwealth of America, had also begun to percolate down south, whether in the form of American businesses expanding or Floridians starting their own beverages.
Between food and drink, Floridian cuisine was world famous, and definitely one of the most notable parts of the country’s culture. However, that’s far from where it ends, as other aspects of Floridian culture were also worth talking about. For example, La Floride was also incredibly interesting artistically, particularly when it came to music. The same blend of European (primarily French), African and Amerindian influences that made Floridian cuisine so interesting also held true when it came to Floridian music. Richelieu and New Orleans were the major centers of Floridian music, with numerous cabarets, theaters and public spaces hosting musical performances, with smaller Floridian cities also playing host to music as well. European instrumentation mixed with African rhythm to create an entirely new sound that would come to be emblematic of the country (probably something similar to OTL’s Jazz). Other forms of music were also prevalent in La Floride, from the French-derived folk music of the Petit-Blancs to the African sounds of more isolated Afro-Floridian populations (in the Îles du Mer for example). As with the cuisine I talked about earlier, Floridian music gained an international audience, as Floridian musicians performed in and emigrated to France and the Commonwealth. While music was La Floride’s most notable artistic field, the country also had a notable presence in other areas. As an example, while France was easily the biggest player in the Francophone film industry, La Floride also had a sizable presence in film, between homegrown productions and French films being produced there. The far southern locations of Biscaine and Île Osseuse in particular became popular filming locations due to their tropical climate and scenery. The tropical scenery also became a popular location for painters, who you could see painting the sights and scenery in any number of Floridian coastal towns, as well as in the big cities. The center of the Floridian painting world was the Institut Floridien des Beaux-Arts, which among other things operated the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Richelieu, one of the largest art museums in the Americas and one of the top tourist attractions in the country.
Speaking of institutions of higher culture, let’s talk about that, shall we? It didn’t take too long for the first university in the Floridian colony to be established, that being the Seminaire de Richelieu in 1668, later renamed to the Université de Richelieu (or UdR for short). UdR, due to its early establishment and importance, also held the status as the most prestigious university in the country, becoming the Floridian equivalent to the Sorbonne (which had been the institution where Cardinal Richelieu taught). UdR was not the only prestigious university in La Floride, though, as the Université Royal in Beinville, despite being two centuries younger, was not too far behind in its importance. Most major Floridian cities had some sort of university or college, mostly operated by the government or the Catholic Church, though the vast majority of Floridians didn’t attend university at this point. Speaking of the Catholic Church, they were probably the most powerful cultural institution in the country. As mentioned in the previous update, nearly 90% of Floridians were Catholics, and the Church ran many institutions like schools and hospitals. Churches were often the centerpieces of their respective towns, and cathedrals were among the most iconic landmarks in the country (particularly Notre-Dame de Richelieu, due to it being in the largest city and being the seat of the Archbishop of Richelieu, the most influential clergyman in the country). Catholicism also shaped the culture of the country in other ways. For example, the Floridian Carnival, where Catholics would feast and party in the few days before Ash Wednesday (particularly on Mardi Gras, the final day of celebration), from where they’d have to give up meat and something else of importance until Holy Thursday a month and a half later. This had become a major public spectacle, with parades and celebrations being major annual events in major Floridian cities. The largest was unsurprisingly in Richelieu, where the Carnival would draw over a million attendees per year by 1970, both locals and tourists.
On the topic of activities, how about we get to the athletic scene in La Floride? Sports, as in any other country, were a very popular form of entertainment in La Floride, both in person and through viewing and listening. For example the Stade H.P. LeGrand in Villeroyale had a seating capacity of 80,000 spectators, one of the largest stadiums in the Western Hemisphere, and the Colisée Cardinal in Richelieu (specifically the suburb of Point Cardinal) wasn’t far behind at 75,000. Whenever La Floride would compete in international sporting competitions, millions would tune in on radio or the rapidly growing visual media (whatever TV would be called ITTL). Many different sports had some sort of audience in La Floride, both foreign and homegrown, and top athletes were among the most famous people in the country.
As in many other countries, the most popular sport was Association Football, or Piedballe as it was translated into French (I know the French call it football or Le Foot IOTL, but this is my TL and I can do what I want. TBH I’m kinda surprised the French didn’t translate the name IOTL, considering the French tendency towards linguistic purism). As with many regions, France had its own traditional games involving kicking a ball with one’s feet, and those traditions were carried over to their colony in North America. Meanwhile, the English codification of Football made it over to France soon after its creation, followed by the French taking it over to La Floride, where it soon became very popular. The Floridian Ligue de Pied was the most popular sports league in the country, with the championship match being listened to or viewed by millions each year. The Floridian national team wasn’t so bad either, with them making it as far as the quarterfinals in the Prix du Monde (in 1962 specifically). Batonball made its way south into La Floride from the Commonwealth of America, as American troops introduced it during the Global Wars. The first Floridian player in the American Batonball League (or ABL for short), Georges Gagnon, debuted in 1937 and played in America for 12 years, and more would soon follow. The most successful Floridian ABL player, Richard Duval, became known as “The Floridian Phantom” for his incredible speed and seemingly impossible plays in the field. La Floride also had its own Batonball league, the Ligue Baton de La Floride, but the ultimate goal of Floridian batonball players was to play in the Commonwealth. Rugball also made it to La Floride, both of the British and American varieties. Rugball teams often shared venues with football teams, due to the similar footprint of the two sports’ fields, and as with batonball, top Floridian rugball players often went to play in other, more prestigious leagues abroad. Individual sports like tennis, golf and boxing were also popular in La Floride, with tennis player Marcel Dupuis coming in second place at the 1952 Olympics in Madrid. Even sports you wouldn’t expect like skiing had an audience in La Floride, with La Floride having a dozen ski areas in 1970 in both the Appalachians and their small slice of the Rockies. Some of the notable ones included Mont des Hêtres and Val des Élans in the Appalachians and Feu des Anges and Pic de L’est outside of the town of La Veine in the Rockies. Moving away from physical sports for now, Auto Racing was also becoming popular in La Floride, with the top racing series in the world which I have yet to name (TTL’s F1 equivalent) hosting three races in the country between 1966 and 1968. More regional series like the North American Auto Tour (or NATT for short) also hosted races in La Floride on a more regular basis, though their main market was the Commonwealth of America. Local race tracks and leagues also operated their own races, drawing aspiring racers seeking to make it big.
You know I mentioned homegrown Floridian sports earlier on in the update? Well, I feel as though I should get to it now. In Northern and Western France, they had their own traditional sport known as La Soule (or La Choule depending on the dialect), in which teams would compete to get a ball to the other team’s goal, often a church, using their hands, feet or sticks. The French colonists, who were mostly from the North and West of France, brought over their athletic tradition to the colony. Upon arrival, they found that the natives to this land had their own ball games, using sticks to move the ball and attempt to score on the opposing team. The French colonists would incorporate influences from the Amerindian games into their own, creating an all new sport native to La Floride. Known as the Jeu de Poteau (or Post Game), or Le Poteau for short, this Floridian sport would be centered around two teams using sticks to hit a leather ball onto the opposing team’s goal post, scoring more points the higher on said post it was hit. The game had mostly been a folk game, sidelined in favor of more established sports from abroad, but over time it became more organized and codified. Teams and leagues began to pop up around the country, and finally, in 1968, the Ligue National du Poteau, or LNP was formed. There were of course other sports played in La Floride as well, but this update is running long, so I’m gonna call it here.
La Floride was by this point one of the most culturally vibrant and rich countries on the planet, with their food, art and customs becoming known worldwide. I might take a bit of time away from the website, as I think I’ve been spending too much time online and need to touch some grass. I will keep working on this and my other TL, though, so stay tuned. For now though, have a happy June.