Not from what I can tell. Of course, on paper, Andrew Johnson doesn’t look like the kind of guy to do the things he ended up doing, but I don’t see why the Natcorp regime would get reprieve by Garner being in charge. We’ve already established that while Garner and Smith are very different men with very different political plans, both are earnest Republicans.
For the Republic: A History of the Second American Civil War
- Thread starter The Angry Observer
- Start date
Given how much suffering has resulted as a result of Hoover's machinations, I seriously doubt people would anything less than life in prison at minimum.
Yeah I fail to see how a leader of ANY political stripe would be stupid enough to be lenient on mass murderers of your own people.
Curious how this will affect the South and Pacific states, outside of accelerating regionalism with the US.
I was talking in the context of broader de-NatCorpization vis-a-vis the handling of the middle management and the rank-and-file.
I would note, the middle management class as we understand it is nowhere near as pervasive as it was in say, Germany after the war. The entire Natcorp regime has been and remains very ad hoc in its construction, and even before the war the existing civil service was nowhere near as a sprawling as it is in our own modern society.
Lack of organization is a key feature of Natcorp governance, most of which is leaning heavily on the few friendly state governments under its control to do most of the day-to-day governance and then implementing military occupation governments in the conquered territories.
Thank you for taking my idea into consideration, though in my opinion I think you should write this chapter near the end of the war when the dust settles a bit.I like this a lot, not gonna lie. Might just run with it...
Out of curiosity, how many chapters do you still have planned?
I've just read Shackles of the Regime on the Natcorp forced labour and death camps as well as Bonnie & Clyde being caught and given the choice of execution or collaboration. I'm kind of wondering if the Republic would implement a similar scheme, albeit for war profiteers (and other criminals)?
In his War is a Racket book, one of Smedley Butler's suggestions to dismantle the war racket was to "conscript capital and industry and labor." He explained this by suggesting that the monthly income of not just the workers but also the tycoons, bankers, military personnel and politicians be restricted and not exceed the same wage as the soldiers fighting on the front-lines.
One way Butler and the Republic ITTL could punish war profiteers if they were caught is to not only restrict (or deny) their income but also sentence them to work in the factories with their workers. Basically "conscript them into the war effort" rather than just having them sit in prison all day.
However I'm not sure if forced/penal labour is something that the Republic is willing to implement as not only is it a violation of alot of domestic and international laws but it obviously will lead to unfavourable comparisons to the Natcorps and contribute to the prison–industrial complex, something that Butler would definitely hate. Herbert Hoover had also advocated and implemented prison reform before the War so that would be an easy way to for him to attack Smith and his administration.
What do you think?
On that note, what you mentioned illustrates how America has often lagged behind Europe vis-a-vis state capacity and the development of a modern civil service.
Not sure. The chapters aren’t planned at all. We’re trying to do a vignette every seven or eight or so. However, we’ve got so much of the TL planned out that typically I just cover whatever seems ahead of us logically.
The Secret Service is certainly ruthless enough to force captured Natcorps into these kinds of arrangements. I’m hoping to make an update on this in the near future.
I think the main issue is that Natcorp war profiteers just aren’t useful for labor. It’s a great way to punish them, but killing them and taking all their assets is a much better way to get what they actually want. After all, there are only so many profiteers out there. They aren’t useful as a laboring class.
Republicans 100% aren’t above employing work camps to get what they want. Hell, the way New England organized labor is treated isn’t far off from forced work.
Out of curiosity but has SACW accelerated the transition from biplanes to monoplanes earlier than OTL.
Asking since it took world war 2 to expose the glaring flaws of biplanes.
Asking since it took world war 2 to expose the glaring flaws of biplanes.
It most definitely has. Just as the Spanish Civil War was seen as a dress rehearsal for the Second World War OTL, the SACW is that on an even larger scale. Biplanes have almost completely fallen out of use in combat capacity by this point, and they’re being replaced in non-combat roles as well.
Now I am curious about which faction will develop jet fighters first.
So I recently read this graphic novel called "We are not Strangers" by John Tuininga, which was inspired by oral stories of the Sephradic (i.e. Mediterranean) Jewish community of Seattle and relationship with the Japanese community during the first half of the 20th century. Which snowballed into members of the former going out of way to assist residents of the latter community during their time in the internship camps of World war 2 when their assets and properties were seized. Since they saw the parallels going on to their fellows Jews within Axis territory at the time.
What I am getting to is this; how will the communities react to the outbreak of the SACW and the KKK seizing control of the Northwest of the US?
What I am getting to is this; how will the communities react to the outbreak of the SACW and the KKK seizing control of the Northwest of the US?
I’m glad you brought this up, because I’m from the PNW and recently have taken a particular interest in its racial and ethnic history. I’m hoping to cook up a chapter on this, sometime in the next four or so. The West is not at peace right now. ITL historians would debate whether or not it is truly even neutral, because Natcorp allies are perpetrating atrocities and crimes against peace. There’s open warfare between Republicans and Neutrality supporters. As a result, minority communities, especially in the PNW, are victims but not passive ones.
"Armageddon in the Cradle of Liberty" (Chapter 26)
New
“Armageddon in the Cradle of Liberty”
"The men are broken. They will-not can-not resist the next one." - Note found in King of Prussia
Natcorp aerial reconnaissance outside Philadelphia
Natcorp aerial reconnaissance outside Philadelphia
The Battle of Philadelphia was, by far, the most expensive single engagement in the Second America Civil War. Even by the standards of that conflict’s vicious frontline in the Great Lakes and eastern seaboard, the Philadelphia campaign was the bloodiest battle in the entire war. It took priority for the Smith Administration, which practically repurposed the entire Northeast to keep the Republican forces there afloat. This was no simple task. Nearly a year previously, in 1934, the National-Corporate assault on the city had failed to take it. As a consequence, the regime’s leadership decided that it would be better in the long term to fight a hideous, extended battle on top of America’s founding city, since victory there could bring an end to the war. On this issue, General Douglas MacArthur and President Al Smith were united: Philadelphia was the backbone of the American Republic. “If we can snap it,” explained MacArthur to Eisenhower, according to what remains of Prescott Bush’s diary, “we’ve broken a hole in the enemy’s lines, which will induce retreat and panic, and put us within days of New York and the whole of New England.” But even so, MacArthur was wary. In the chaos of 1934, when nascent hordes of Republican volunteers were lining up to defend the Keystone State, William Randolph Hearst had very frankly suggested pounding Philadelphia until it couldn’t move, reasoning that rebellions and rump states had to be dealt with harshly and quickly. While MacArthur’s flamboyant habits and the general disorganization in the regime has made discerning his true motives challenging, MacArthur scholarship generally suggests that he was moved by the risks of a prolonged battle, even if he eventually accepted them. The Natcorps’ aggressive push into Philadelphia had largely been successful in 1934, but the Republican lines had not snapped as MacArthur wanted. They’d bent and suffered enormously, but by winter the Natcorps were forced to slow the offensive due to their own weaknesses and Republican resolve. Thus, the Battle of Philadelphia began in earnest. The winter was marked by both sides doing what had been unthinkable a year ago to strengthen their own positions. Aerial and artillery strikes were conducted vigorously against the opposition, with countless civilians caught in the crossfire. Nearly everywhere in America was pinched by a painful food shortage, but in Philadelphia this became an apocalyptic famine. George C. Marshall and his Natcorp opponents seized food, to ensure their respective armies had access to it, and to further force the civilian population of Philadelphia into compliance.
The Natcorps sought to use the winter to strengthen their position in Philadelphia’s western parts, and in the spring launch an even more massive attack on the Republican forces. Indeed, as the Republican enclaves in the Midwest rapidly collapsed thanks to Natcorp recruits pouring west, a stream of new soldiers from the border states closed the vice on Philadelphia. And while the Republicans suffered greatly, the attrition oriented mode of warfare also gave Marshall valuable time to organize. Historians have long debated the merits of these actions. Sensing that time was running out, MacArthur ordered Lloyd Fredendall to press the attack. In February, following a barrage reminiscent of the ones that razed much of Alsace-Lorraine in the Great War, a colossal Natcorp force attacked from the northwest. Stimson’s efforts to coordinate a counterattack from Allentown were swatted off, and the regime unleashed its fury on western Philadelphia. Pottstown, King of Prussia, Willow Grove, Conshohocken, and Springfield were crushed after heavy fighting. Marshall had little choice but to retreat and inflict the maximum amount of casualties possible, something he did through cold blooded strategy. “We did whatever was possible to delay the Jackboot’s advance,” recalled one of his aides. “Which required some pretty expensive counter-attacks. Worse yet, we couldn’t relieve every Battalion caught under fire from Mac. And we acknowledged how useful those types of delaying agents could be.” In Delaware, the Republican cause saw more luck. While the Natcorps surrounded them from all sides, the Republicans in Wilmington were able to grind the enemy offensive to a halt and keep General Mark Clark from entering the city. So long as Marshall controlled the nucleus of Philadelphia, he could use the Delaware River to reinforce the Republicans in Wilmington, which kept the Natcorp armies divided enough to prevent them from dealing a killing blow.
Famine victims in Philadelphia
Marshall did not believe he could face the entire Natcorp force at once while weathering the kind of destruction he was. Hence, he fought on multiple very tenuous fronts. This shifted Natcorp war aims towards the Delaware River. If Philadelphia was the backbone of the Republic, the Delaware was the backbone of Philadelphia. Fredendall judged that his best bet for seizing it was between Philadelphia proper and Wilmington. The Natcorps leveled their sights against the Chester township. “They’re ferrying the finest Russian war machines down that river,” commented Fredendall. “With me on Chester and Ike from the rear, we can make Wilmington a sitting duck.” MacArthur agreed. In June of 1935, this triggered what was at that point the worst fighting in the war. The III, VIII, and X Corps attacked Chester head-on, following an even more savage aerial bombardment. However, the Natcorps had reached something of a ceiling with these tactics. It was true, they were capable of inflicting much horror on Philadelphia’s defenders. But after the long winter, the Republicans weren’t inclined to shatter just bombing runs alone. Meanwhile, the Republic’s fledgling Air Force did its best to run the assailants off. Republican aviators ran risky missions, flying past Natcorp artillery and through swarms of fighter planes to take the pressure off Chester. Using the Delaware, Marshall rotated troops from New England to Chester. The Republicans’ ferries were under constant fire, and more than a few sunk. Soldiers were told to swim to shore and join the town’s defense. On both sides, they lived off of inadequate rations. The noise of carnage never stopped, not even in the dead of night. Civilian collateral was high, as were the casualties divisions in Chester suffered. Conditions were so thoroughly miserable that the War Department feared mutiny on more than one occasion, and went to great pains to make sure no unit spent more than a few weeks in Chester.
More dangerous than planes were tanks. In Chester, the Republicans held a single, temporary advantage: until the Natcorps razed the entire city to the ground, it would be difficult to penetrate. In south Jersey, the Republican defenders had no such respite. Eisenhower attacked them on a wide and open front, taking advantage of the regime’s superiority in armor. Generals Patton and Butler already demanded armor for their respective campaigns, which put the Republic in an especially vulnerable position. Eisenhower in practice could depend on air support from Washington, even when he couldn’t from LeMay’s Ohio headquarters. Using armor and air to break up infantry formations, Marshall either had to defeat him in the field or retreat to the city’s confines— trapping him in a siege, potentially allowing the Natcorp armies to link up, and leaving Eisenhower unopposed in much of New Jersey. Taciturn and thorough, Eisenhower believed that if he and Fredendall continued to squeeze Philadelphia from both sides, it would collapse. “In history,” he noted, “there are few occasions where an enemy entrapped like the one in Philadelphia triumphed.” And if he could not make the Republicans run, Eisenhower would crush them. He recognized this would be no easy task, and the casualties ahead weighed on the reluctant Natcorp commander. During the Jersey campaign, Eisenhower smoked nearly ten packs of cigarettes a day and couldn’t be found without a mug of coffee in his hand. He also became irritable, and rarely held his tongue when he believed another commander to be making a mistake. Fredendall was liked better by his superiors, but treated his duties with less urgency. There were few organizational reforms in such a massive army already reeling from an administrative vacuum from the Ithaca campaign, the Natcorps leaned on infantry when they didn’t need to, and Fredendall spent lavishly on creature comforts such as a bulletproof cadillac.
Lloyd Fredendall
The Republicans had roughly the same calculation. Marshall appealed to Smith, warning of the dire straits the Republic would be in if either Natcorp commander was to reach the Delaware, much less both. “Calamity,” said Marshall, “is on top of us if Eisenhower’s progress continues through the summer, even if we shall hold Chester. Much of our positions in Philadelphia would become useless, mandating a messy retreat to New York City that would leave many divisions behind.” Marshall concluded by earnestly begging for more troops, more weapons, or a counteroffensive elsewhere that could take the heat off Philadelphia. Some historians have questioned the truth behind this ominous warning, especially considering that Smith used Marshall’s reports to bludgeon the GOP in Congress. Even so, the War Department certainly saw smoke under the fire. In June, Stimson authorized Operation Tudor, a massive attack on Eisenhower’s northern flank. It was largely ineffectual in seriously compromising Atlantic City and did almost nothing to limit the Natcorp units pouring into Jersey (here, the U.S.N. enjoyed success, albeit by modest degrees), but it did indirectly reinforce Marshall and delayed Eisenhower. This gave Marshall time to reorganize. He turned to the young and bright Brigadier General James Roosevelt, the New York Governor’s son, to be the Republic’s first line of defense. The resulting Hammonton campaign was not promising for the Republic. Eisenhower was not nearly as easy to distract as other Natcorp commanders had proven. A shrewd organizer, MacArthur’s faith in him was vindicated as Eisenhower spent the summer repeatedly outflanking his opponent. “He is my chess-master,” proclaimed MacArthur. “If he has the winning position, he’s never losing it. He knows every hold in the book, and Albany’s little prince is learning the hard way.”
Even so, without Eisenhower at the Delaware, the Republic had a lifeline. Smith and Kennedy’s maneuvering abroad had enough tanks rolling in to stave off disaster. In Hammonton, Roosevelt retreated but didn't route, inflicting considerable damage on the advancing Natcorps and making good use of his armor. The campaign nonetheless cost Smith some political capital, as the GOP used the setbacks to accuse the War Department of nepotism. It also grated the ego of the twenty-seven-year-old general. The campaign in Jersey was enabled by Marshall moving troops from the city’s western front. This weakened the Republicans in the critical moment, and led many in Albany to believe the city was within days of falling. Smith did not take the threat lightly, and proposed drastic action. For both political and military purposes, the War Department was under strict orders from him to prepare a counteroffensive, presumably to be launched in early 1936. “We are all Patton men,” explained one leak in Albany. “All are largely in agreement that the Jackboot must be sent on the run very soon, to keep the public confidence high if nothing else.” Of course, this was easier said than done. As distinguished as Patton’s service was, Smith already had a sense that “Bandito” had trust in his abilities that didn’t match reality. He and Stimson took an active role in the Fourth Army’s preparations, fully conscious that striking too early would make the Republic’s position even more dire and every second delayed could mean collapse in Philadelphia. In July of 1935, Smith told a Congressional delegation that “too much remains underway for Patton to make his move”. Nonetheless, with Eisenhower and Fredendall closing in, action had to be taken. This is why Smith authorized perhaps the single most controversial of his military maneuvers, the Scranton campaign.
Natcorps in the Scranton campaign
The Sixth Army, under the command of Omar Bradley, feinted at the heart of occupied Pennsylvania. This was not intended to dislodge the enemy, merely to distract him. Smith fully expected high casualties, and even for the Natcorps to reorient and seize previously unmolested territory. Bradley was once again the “patsy”, as he referred to his role. Smith believed losses could be mitigated by the already established defenses in the Adirondack Mountains, and would certainly be worth buying time for the troops in Philadelphia. Bradley and the Sixth, however, shocked the entire world by overwhelming initial Natcorp defenders and carving a path straight towards Harrisburg. If Albany was pleasantly surprised, Washington was apoplectic. As has been the case in many of history’s worst moments, both sides feared the other more than they knew. Just as Albany was buying time in multiple desperate fronts it was ill equipped to support, so Douglas MacArthur had come to feel the walls closing in. The most compelling argument to support the March on Washington, and perhaps the reason that the fifty-five year old General attached his name to it to begin with, was that the government had bloodlessly been decapitated and someone needed to fill that void. This gave the early Natcorps much room to win over a populace that had no idea what to believe in January of 1934. But the illusion of the bloodless National-Corporate state did not endure much further than there. The American Republic fought on, and the Northeast was not the only part of the country that was horribly suffering under its excesses.
A common interpretation of MacArthur’s war leadership is that he was an excellent commander but a poor politician, and he served as nothing more than a front for an oligarchy that shortsightedly looted an entire country. But more recent analysis suggests that however detached from the doings of his subordinates MacArthur was, if nothing else he was excellent at keeping his own power. Brinkley, whose scholarship typically supports the former view, nonetheless contends that MacArthur “very quickly understanding what Hoover’s nucleus of power in the DOJ could do in the tightly centralized federal bureaucracy was an unforced success”. And although it is debated what role he personally played in the economic finagling at the beginning of the year, the price controls and stimulus payouts that he forced the regime’s Old Guard to assent to kept him in power, even if it inflicted financial ruin that part of America still hasn't entirely recovered from. It was a bandage to a much more enduring problem. The War was expensive. It required money the regime didn’t have and couldn’t acquire without severe repercussions. More direct of a problem was the human toll. The fighting in Philadelphia and other fronts was every bit as ferocious for the fascists as the Republicans. Albany had not imploded and the war ground on. While Einsehower may have believed that the capture of New York City was a few months of fighting away, these nuances were lost on average people. “We are blasted and broken,” wrote one minister in Philadelphia, “watching Rumpublican shells fly through our ranks and the greatest city in America razed to the dirt. Morale too is in the pits. It is difficult to get the old-timers to keep their spirits up. The new-timers are unreliable and now it is just as often us that break in the face of danger.” The memo, which was directed to Fredendall and his staff, ominously concludes by noting “chatter about the Department of Justice.”
Republican infantry struggling in Stalingrad
On top of this, the anarchy the war threw America into unleashed a killer that neither side had the resources to fight off: cholera, or Philadelphia Flu, born from water issues at the frontline. It was “oil on the fire”, and quickly engulfed both armies. It raced outwards, ravaging New England and MacArthur’s D.C. headquarters alike, then spiraling into the south. In the Midwest, cholera was a genuine harbinger of the apocalypse, and the disease had both armies at their breaking point. However, as the attackers, the Natcorps were the ones that lost valuable initiative. The highest estimates put cholera’s death toll throughout the entire war at one million. And the Upper South, where the bulk of Natcorp manpower resided, was no exception. "The hospitals," writes Diarist Mary Dothan, "are stuffed like turkeys were in better times." The disease shook faith in MacArthur’s rule and sapped valuable resources. MacArthur toiled to keep problems from resurfacing, and in a conversation with Bush compared himself to “a lowly servant in the hull of a ship, patching leaks with glue I don’t have.” In May, there had been another payout, a smaller and more targeted one, to ward off these issues and reward Natcorp veterans. Simultaneously, conscription was expanded, as was forced labor, which predominantly targeted ethnic minorities. Neither the problem nor MacArthur’s solutions were received kindly by the regime’s godfather, J. P. Morgan and the Old Guard. They ultimately relented, but their patience was not unlimited. What appeared to have wounded MacArthur most was not the actual threat, but that there was one at all from his own house. Very rarely is MacArthur even recorded mentioning Morgan, but as in his prewar career he expressed a “royalistic” contempt for the “bureaucrats and busybodies” that were not ready to win their own war.
When, on top of all of these things, the Republicans launched the Scranton Offensive, MacArthur snapped. MacArthur knew a counteroffensive (to be commanded by Patton, the only man MacArthur truly seemed to fear) was in the works. Panicked directives flew from Washington to the generals at the front, demanding Bradley’s destruction at once. MacArthur made a show of the issue in his radio address, giving dire proclamations of communist hordes marching through Pennsylvania— and using this as a pretext to continue the conscription, slavery, and mass crackdowns the regime relied on. In the summer of 1935, hundreds of Natcorp bureaucrats and wealthy supporters were dragged to concrete dungeons in D.C. by Hoover's men, which may have weakened the state itself but increased MacArthur’s control over what was left of it. In this way, MacArthur outflanked the Old Guard, securing more power for himself. The situation at the front was less clear cut. As for the Offensive itself, as Smith had grimly predicted, the Natcorps retaliated harshly. By the end of July, not only had the Republic’s initial gains been rolled back, thousands of soldiers were killed and a fresh batch of Anglo-Soviet armor was destroyed. The Natcorps were close to Scranton itself. The stunning defeat was very bad for Smith’s public image, and what polls were available suggested his approval rating fell to the lowest it ever had. Omar Bradley was left a loser again. But the internal damage wasn’t limited to the Republic. While much about the Scranton Offensive backfired, it seems to have (perhaps unnecessarily) drawn fire away from Philadelphia. MacArthur was privately angry with Fredendall, viewing his response as insufficiently quick. “Fredendall,” notes Alan Brinkley, “saw the maneuver as the feint it was. He was slow to communicate this to MacArthur, slow to understand MacArthur’s political considerations, and slow to carry out his overlord’s orders. The peak of the embarrassment was structure dissolving in Fredendall’s mobile headquarters when after much warning he attempted to, as the name suggests, move it westward.” As a consequence, Fredendall got little credit for the action in Scranton.
Anti-war demonstrators in New York
This provoked another of MacArthur’s infamous command shakeups. Fredendall was moved to Maryland, ostensibly to prosecute the campaign in Wilmington. Meanwhile, more secure in his seat of power, MacArthur transferred his trusted lieutenant Hugh Alosyus Drum from Washington to Philadelphia. While the Battle of Philadelphia would continue to claim more lives than any engagement in U.S. history, MacArthur somewhat pared down the vicious infantry assaults in favor of more air raids. It has been debated whether this was intentional or simply a side effect of the void that followed Fredendall’s departure, and is endlessly debated whether things really were as dire as any side believed. Whatever the case, the Republic did not lose Chester in the summer of 1935. And Drum’s stay in Philadelphia would not be a long one.
Realistically if MacArthur and the NatCorps won the Second American Civil War ITTL, who would MacArthur choose to be his Vice President in the 1936 presidential election?