The American Monarchy

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1925 - 1927

In July 1925, the Battle of Mexico City took place. Pershing had arrived outside of the city in late June, where Félix Díaz and much of his army had holed up. On July 4th, during an impromptu Independence Day celebration, Pershing’s army was ambushed by Díaz’s cavalry, and the battle began. Pershing and Obregón both believed that the only way to end the civil war was the complete capture of Mexico City and destruction of Díaz’s army. By July 10th, Pershing had taken much of Mexico City, after brutal house-to-house fighting. Many Americans serving with Pershing were veterans of the conflict in Russia, and had thus become well-accustomed to urban warfare. On July 12th, as Díaz’s army became surrounded in the center of the city, he sued for peace. While the Liberation Army of the South, led by Emiliano Zapata, still controlled much of southern Mexico, Pershing and Obregón declared mission accomplished. General Smedley Butler, “The Hero of Ireland”, was sent with a small detachment of some 10,000 men into the jungles of the South to pacify Zapata. Throughout the autumn, Obregón, Prime Minister Roosevelt, King Henry I, and numerous leading Mexican politicians and military men met in Mexico City and hammered out a Mexican Constitution. Borrowing largely from the American constitution, it called for a Senate (Senado) which elected a Presidente or Prime Minister, with an upper house called the Royal Council (Consejo del Rey). In keeping with the tradition of an American Republic, there was also to be a King. Henry I selected his brother, Prince Charles, and Prince Charles and his wife Viktoria Luise would arrive in Mexico in early 1926. He would be crowned King Carlos I.

Theodore Roosevelt returned to the United States in 1926 again as a hero, having cemented his reputation as an expert diplomat and master of foreign policy. But Roosevelt’s strenuous schedule had taken a toll on his health, and in March 1926, he made it clear to this cabinet that he intended to resign, and pass the title of Prime Minister along to one of the younger Senators in the party. Before he resigned, however, he would push for major election reform. In April 1926, Roosevelt officially announced that he would be resigning in July, exactly a decade after he had first become Prime Minister. The Liberal Party Senate caucus, wary of repeating the chaotic fight over selecting a Prime Minister that occurred in 1908, held a private meeting in Cleveland to decide upon a Prime Minister. After short speeches by all the candidates, the first round of balloting began:

First Ballot:
Nicholas Longworth (L-OH): 123 votes
Hiram Johnson (L-CA): 75 votes
Arthur Meighen (L-ON): 54 votes
John Calvin Coolidge (L-MA): 21 votes
John Q. Tilson (L-CT): 12 votes
Daniel O. Hastings (L-DE): 7 votes
William Borah (L-KS): 6 votes
Abstentions/Not-attending: 5 votes
Total: 303 votes

Nicholas Longworth emerged as the frontrunner on the first ballot, and quickly gained the support of the conservative wings of the party, with the endorsements of Meighen and Coolidge on the second ballot. Hiram Johnson was supported by more progressive, pro-Roosevelt members of the party, but his wing was drastically out-numbered by Longworth’s conservative wing of the party. Nicholas Longworth won a majority of the votes on the second ballot.

Second Ballot:
Nicholas Longworth (L-OH): 181 votes
Hiram Johnson (L-CA): 80 votes
John Q. Tilson (L-CT): 15 votes
Abstentions/Not-attending: 7 votes
Total: 303 votes


Prime Minister Nicholas Longworth

The First Longworth Cabinet (July 1926):
Prime Minister: Nicholas Longworth (L-OH)
Deputy Prime Minister: John Calvin Coolidge (L-MA)
Majority Whip: Franklin D. Roosevelt (L-NY)
Secretary of State: John Calvin Coolidge (L-MA)
Secretary of the Treasury: Arthur Meighen (L-ON)
Secretary of War: Hiram Johnson (L-CA)
Attorney General: Ogden L. Mills (L-NY)
Secretary of the Interior: William Borah (L-KS)
Secretary of Agriculture: James W. Good (L-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover (L-IA)

In the year since Pershing had taken Mexico City, the situation in Southern Mexico had worsened considerably. Thousands of American soldiers had been killed by disease and the guerilla attacks of the Zapatistas. In August 1926, General Smedley Butler, the commander in charge of American forces fighting in Southern Mexico, testified before the Senate, asking for additional reinforcements as well as a naval blockade of the area. Secretary of War Hiram Johnson, something of an isolationist, refused Butler’s request, arguing that enough American blood had been shed defending Mexico. Opposition Leader Villa (in large part forced by his increasingly dovish party) and Populist Leader John W. Davis applauded the Secretary’s decision. Nonetheless, a furious Prime Minister Longworth asked for Johnson’s resignation, making it clear that his government fully supported the Mexican government’s struggle against guerilla forces. On August 23rd, Hiram Johnson, along with fellow isolationist Liberals Borah, Good and Hoover, resigned from the cabinet over Longworth’s Mexico policy. Nonetheless, Longworth pushed forward, putting the Mexican Stability Authorization Act of 1926 up to a vote. The SDP and Populists quickly came out against it, but Longworth’s Liberals had a commanding majority in the Senate. Problematically, isolationists and progressives within the party, rallying around Hiram Johnson, joined the SDP and Populists against the act, leading to its failure by a vote of 232 to 241.

Francisco Villa then put up his own bill concerning Mexico, calling for a full pull-out of American forces. “The era of American imperialism must come to an end,” he boomed before the Senate chamber in September 1926. But Villa’s bill was also to be defeated, as many Liberals who had voted against Longworth’s proposal were also unwilling to pull out of Mexico completely. At an impasse, the Senate adjourned for the winter, as Americans continued to fight pitched battles against guerillas in Mexico. In Mexico, newly elected President Obregón and King Carlos Ieveed the federal army and sent 30,000 troops to reinforce Butler’s men in the South. When the Senate reconvened in March 1927, the Mexico issue was still front and center. King Henry I by this point had made it clear that he would send troops into Mexico with or without the Senate’s consent. Opposition Leader Villa responded by calling the King a “tyrant, ignorant of the constitution and his role in government.” Prime Minister Longworth agreed, though certainly in not so many words, and privately met with the King, arguing to Henry that the Senate had as much say in the situation as he did. Henry disagreed; in April, he ordered the Royal Navy to move into the Gulf of Mexico. Longworth, unwilling to cede the Senate’s power to the monarchy, and wary of creating a precedent that King had full control of the military, pushed a bill defunding any army regiments send to Mexico above those approved by the Senate. With the support of all three parties, the War Powers Act of 1927 passed overwhelmingly in early May 1927.

With the King temporarily checked, Longworth met with Hiram Johnson to work out a compromise on the Mexico issue. By June 1927, just before the Senate adjourned for the Summer, Longworth was finally able to pass the Mexican Stability Authorization Act of 1927, which authorized an additional 5,000 troops to be sent to Mexico and increased funding for the Mexican army. General Smedley Butler complained that 5,000 troops would not be enough, but Longworth realized that it was the most he could get through a Senate (and a country) that had generally tired of foreign intervention. June 1927 also saw the passage of a budget with record low taxes and record high tariffs; evidently the Senate in 1927 had not yet tired of the liberal economic policies of Longworth’s party.

[Lief 🗽]

He would be crowned King Carols I.

Carlos, I assume?
But a great update.

Yes, you would assume correctly.

[Lief 🗽]

I'll update on Friday. Expect a new (major) political party (or maybe two; I haven't decided) and some political upheaval in Europe.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1927 - 1928

In September, 1927, former Prime Minister Theodore Roosevelt, in slightly better health since leaving behind the stresses of leading the country, and former Royal Advisor Woodrow Wilson published an article entitled “The Case for Election Reform.” In the essay, they called for a major overhaul of representation in the legislative branch, a subject that they had both for a long time been interested in. Roosevelt, one of the most popular Prime Ministers in United States history, and Wilson, a highly respected political theorist following his presence at the Treaty of Rome negotiations, carried a lot of weight with the public and in political circles. In the essay, Roosevelt and Wilson argued that the current system of representation, first past the post with single-member districts, was inherently undemocratic and prevented the true voice of the people from being represented. Roosevelt and Wilson argued for an amendment to the constitution establishing a mixed member proportional system, with half of the seats being represented by constituency elections with run-offs and the second half coming from a proportional nationwide party-list vote.

The essay, written by two popular political figures, was widely circulated, and won large public support. Prime Minister Longworth was initially opposed to it, but nonetheless set up a committee headed up by Senator Arthur Meighen (L-ON), along with four other Senators (two Liberals, one SDP, and one Populist). The Senate adjourned for the rest of 1927, while the Meighen Commission investigated the during the fall and winter. When the Senate returned to the capital in March 1928, Meighen came before the Senate, arguing against the proposal. Despite support from the SDP and Populists, the three Liberals on the commission, fearing that such a system would erode Liberal power, had written a report strongly criticizing it. Longworth was prepared to instruct his party to kill the amendment, which was coming up for a vote in April, when Theodore Roosevelt died on March 18th, 1928. Senate business was stalled for a month, as the nation mourned a hugely popular leader. Roosevelt’s funeral was attended by King Henry I, King Carlos I and President Álvaro Obregón of Mexico, Prime Minister Longworth (along with the entire cabinet), Leader of the Opposition Francisco Villa, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky of Russia, along with many diplomats from around the world.

When the Senate returned to business in April, the proposal, now closely linked with the memory of the late Prime Minister, had gained much support, particularly from the progressive bloc in the Liberal Party, which saw themselves as the successors to Rooseveltian policies, at least domestically. In a number of private meetings, Hiram Johnson, the leader of the bloc, threatened to walk out of the party if Longworth did not see the amendment’s passage through. Ultimately, with the public in favor of the bill, and with the threat of his own party fragmenting, Longworth instructed the Liberals in the Senate to vote in favor of the Democratic Representation Reform Amendment. With SDP and Populist support and the dissent of only the most conservative Liberals, the DRRA easily broke the required 2/3 support in the Senate and was sent to the states. While many large states, mostly in the Northeast, opposed the 22nd Amendment, it would be easily ratified by the beginning of 1930.

The passage of the amendment in the Senate marked one of the first successes in Longworth’s two years as Prime Minister. Unfortunately for Longworth, he was soon faced with more problems. On August 4th, 1928, a group of 3,000 American marines entered the Mexican city of Veracruz, in the coastal state of Veracruz. Unbeknownst to them, Zapatistas had taken control of the city’s government, and by nightfall on the 4th of August, the Americans had been completely surrounded. What followed was a bloody massacre, as the entire detachment was wiped out. General Smedley Butler, who was awoken on August 5th by the radio message of the handful of survivors who had escaped the slaughter, was furious, and directed 50,000 soldiers as well as 25,000 additional Federales to march on the city of Veracruz. The Battle of Veracruz commenced on August 8th, 1928. Though the Americans had expected to take the city easily, the populace had turned against the Americans and allied with the Liberation Army of the South and Emiliano Zapata. On August 11th, after three days of fighting, American forces had failed to push very far into the city, and General Butler called for an artillery barrage to break the will of the defenders, as well as a naval blockade and bombardment of the city.

In the United States, especially in the Senate, there was immediately public outrage. “We must bring our boys home now, and end this immoral imperialist adventure,” Populist Party Leader John W. Davis boomed before the Senate. The SDP quickly came out in support of withdrawing from Mexico entirely, as did the Populists. Prime Minister Nicholas Longworth’s Liberal Party was again divided on the issue, with the progressive wing pushing for a withdrawal, but Longworth’s own conservative faction steadfastly against withdrawal. Majority Whip Franklin D. Roosevelt (L-NY) stood before the Senate in September and expressed the views of many in the chamber: “If we as Americans shall fail to support the flower of democracy wherever it may bloom, we shall enter upon a new and terrible era in which the whole world would be run by threats of brute force, terror and dictatorship.” Roosevelt’s speech was met with wide acclaim, and there were even private conversations in the capital about replacing the relatively unpopular Longworth with Roosevelt come next election. Ultimately, Longworth’s conservatives were able to keep control of the Liberal party and the chamber, and bills calling for a pull-out were soundly defeated.

Nonetheless, conditions in Mexico continued to worsen, and the Second Battle of Veracruz, fought in September, proved to be as bloody as the first. This time, American and Mexican forces were able to pacify the city after a week of brutal fighting, though Veracruz was left largely in ruin. General Smedley Butler again came to the United States to testify in front of the Senate, demanding more troops and more funding for the Mexican army. He also met with King Henry I in Arlington Palace, where the King expressed regret that the Senate was not more willing to support troops in Mexico. King Henry I met with Nicholas Longworth in October, to ask him for more troops in Mexico. The two quickly descended into a shouting match, a furious Longworth screaming that he was doing all he could. A week later, the Prime Minister met with Hiram Johnson and told him that he would be sending an additional 100,000 troops to Mexico. Johnson saw that as unacceptable, and promised that his progressive faction would leave the party. Longworth, long tired of being blackmailed by the progressives in his party, famously responded, “Damnit Hiram. Either leave or don’t, but I’m done with you.” The next week, Hiram Johnson announced he was leaving the Liberal party and forming the Independent Liberal Party (ILP). Fifty-three Liberal Senators, along with a handful of Populists and Social Democrats, also left their respective parties to join Johnson. Nonetheless, the Liberals still held a majority, albeit a slim one, and were able to pass the Mexican Stability Authorization Act of 1928 in October of 1928, authorizing an additional 100,000 troops to be sent to Mexico.

[Lief 🗽]

The next update will be solely concerned with Europe during the 1920s, where many things that I haven't detailed have occurred.

[Lief 🗽]

I'll update tomorrow afternoon. I do intend, by the way, to end the TL/catch up with the modern day (same thing) by June or so.

And I don't start attending college until next September, though MasterJedi is right that summer is a good time for making the money with which one pays for college.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: Europe in the 1920s
Note: At the suggestion of Colin and Xahar, I've edited the aftermath of the breakup of Austria-Hungary; Slovakia remained a part of Hungary, while a Republic of Bohemia and Moravia, comprising more or less the modern Czech Republic, became an independent nation.

Russia
Following the successful conclusion of the Russian Civil War in Spring 1923, Alexander Kerensky’s Socialist Revolutionary Party (a moderate leftist party) won 53% of the seats in the Russian Constituent Assembly. The second largest party was the Constitutional Democratic Party (a classical liberal party), led by Pavel Milyukov, with about 20% of the seats in the Assembly. The Bolsheviks (a socialist party led by Joseph Stalin) and the Octobrists (a moderate liberal party led by Mikhail Rodzianko) each gained about 10% of the seats in the chamber. Prime Minister Kerensky immediately nationalized large banks and large industries. At the same time, Kerensky’s government also pushed forward land reform measures, giving peasants greater economic freedom. Russia saw heavy economic investment from American and German companies through the 1920s, as Prime Minister Theodore Roosevelt in particular encouraged American business and industry to invest in the war torn nation. Due to a combination of Kerensky’s economic policies and foreign investment, Russia’s agricultural and industrial production had returned to pre-World War levels by 1927. As the 1930s began, Alexander Kerensky’s Russia had become a remarkable success story, largely free of the problems faced in other European nations, and quickly becoming an industrial power.

France
France saw widespread social turmoil and a poor economy following their defeat in the World War. As of 1925, German troops still occupied the east of the country, inflation was constantly rising, and governments came to power and splintered yearly. In 1925, Raymond Poincaré was Prime Minister, as leader of the center-right Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD). Hungarian-funded communists and Italian-backed fascists regularly pulled off terrorist attacks in the major cities of France. By 1926, Poincaré’s government had become increasingly unpopular, and unemployment rates peaked at 19%. Unrest and unemployment culminated in the July Revolution, as striking workers took to the streets in Paris and other large cities. On July 3rd, Raymond Poincaré was assassinated by Boris Souvarine, a Russian-born communist. This seemed to be the political tipping point, as the peaceful strikes that had engulfed the country quickly erupted in bloodshed, as leftists and rightists clashed in urban battles. The beleagered French government quickly lost control of the country, as competing fascist and communist groups seized power in various regions. André Tardieu was elected Prime Minister of France, as the French parliament fled from Paris. Tardieu ordered the French army to put down the protesters, while also appealing to the League of Nations for support. By the end of July, a combined French and international force (mostly made up German soldiers occupying France) had regained order. André Tardieu would continue as Prime Minister until 1928, when his government again fell. Through the end of 1928 and 1929, France continued to face social and economic unrest, with various radical groups continuing to gain prominence.

Germany
Though victorious in the World War, the German Reich faced its own set of problems during the 1920s. Kaiser Wilhelm II, though he had promised to democratize his nation and expand civil liberties in the Treaty of Rome negotiations, quickly reneged on these promises, and the 1920s saw the Reichstag gain little more power. Instead, the military gained increasing control of the German Empire, especially as German forces were dispatched across the world to garrison newly controlled territory. The German government slid further and further into debt as the 1920s continued, as it quickly became clear than Germany did not have the manpower or economic power to occupy (at times) hostile territories on four continents. In 1925, Kaiser Wilhelm II sold Madagascar to the United States, and began pulling troops out of Indochina, granting the territory limited autonomy. This angered some of the far-right in Germany, and in September of 1925, an attempted “Putsch” was attempted by members of the nationalist Kampfbund in Bavaria, principally the city of Munich. The revolt was quickly put down by General Erich Ludendorff. As the 1920s came to an end, there was increasing unrest and disillusion with the Kaiser and his government, as the economy had continued to worsen. The German people turned to a number of political groups, including liberal democrats, right-wing nationalists, and the left, as all these factions gained popularity and support.

Great Britain
The Liberal-supported Labour government had, by 1923, fallen, with few accomplishments aside from constant squabbling and a souring economy to its name. In the 1923 general election, Stanley Baldwin’s Conservatives gained a plurality of seats in the House of Commons, falling short of a majority. Baldwin’s government quickly gave way to new elections, scheduled for the summer of 1924. Riots in many of the industrial cities of the United Kingdom sprung up through the Spring of 1924, and the Conservatives were effectively able to tie the occasionally violent riots and the threat of socialism to the Labour Party, leading to a clear victory in June 1924 and a majority Conservative government. Prime Minister Baldwin, pursued protectionist policies in a quest to drive down unemployment. Hawks in his cabinet, primarily Foreign Secretary Winston Churchill, pushed for a military and naval build-up, so that Britain would maintain its status as a world power after its loss in the war. Tensions during this period between the United States and the United Kingdom increased, as nationalist within Britain (and even in the government) blamed the United States for many of Britain’s problems, taking advantage of a history of antagonism between the two nations.

The Rest of Europe
Bela Kun’s Soviet Republic of Hungary survived since its inception in October of 1921. With the advice of failed-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, Bela Kun reformed the Hungarian Red Army and nationalized much of Hungary. Though much of Hungary’s industry was destroyed in the war and the first few years of Kun’s rule saw widespread famine and unrest, including a number of failed revolts, by 1926 Hungary’s industrial and agricultural production had begun to rebound. By the end of the 1920s, the Soviet Republic of Hungary had become the strongest industrial and military power in Eastern Europe, and was beginning to extend its power and influence into the independent states of the Balkans.

The Republic of Bohemia and Moravia, which gained indepdence following the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, came under increasing German influence throughout the first half of the 1920s. In 1925, after a concentrated German propaganda campaign and a failing economy, widespread unrest caused President Tomas Masaryk to resign. Germany quickly moved in, and Kaiser Wilhelm II placed Prince Sigismund of Prussia on the throne, taking the title King Sigismund of Bohemia and Moravia. Germany also quietly annexed some of the outlying ethnic-German regions of the country. Though Tomas Masaryk and his supporters initially appealed to the League of Nations, Germany and its ally the United States had established de facto control of the international organization by 1925. By 1929, the Kingdom of Bohemia-Moravia had become yet another German puppet state, along with Poland, Livland, Albania and, to a lesser extent, Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Kingdom of Austria survived the 1920s with heavy financial and military support from Germany. Throughout the decade, King Franz I sought to democratize his country, and reform it along the American model of a republican monarchy. As the 1920s ended, Karl Renner, a Social Democrat, was chancellor, and, like most European nations, was only just beginning to get out of the post-war recession.

Italy saw the rise of a Fascist dictatorship under Benito Mussolini , following his March on Rome in June 1923. During the 1920s, Mussolini nationalized much of the Italian economy and increased military spending and production. His government also supporter fascist paramilitary movements in France and the Balkans.

Like the Germans, the Ottomans were hesitant to democratize and liberalize their empire, as had been called for during the negotiations of the Treaty of Rome. While the Ottoman Empire was largely able to avoid the economic recession ravaging Europe, it did face many revolts in the ethnically non-Turkish regions of its empire. British forces in Palestine, Kuwait and Iran supplied Arab revolutionaries with weapons and ammunition throughout the decade. The Ottoman Empire, already unstable before the war, and now facing widespread revolt, began to fall apart in the period between 1924 and 1925. Mustafa Kemal, a general in charge of fighting Arab rebels in Syria, learned of the detiorating government in Istanbul and marched his army to Istanbul. When he arrived in Istanbul, his forces bolstered by deserting troops throughout the empire, Mustafa Kemal, with the support of much of the international community, including Prime Minister Theodore Roosevelt forced the Sultan to abdicate. By 1926, the Republic of Turkey had been established, with Mustafa Kemal as its President. From 1926 through the end of the decade, Turkey saw rapid modernization and westernization.

[Lief 🗽]

We'll be entering the 30s in the next update, don't worry.

Kevinstat, as for your first question, the text description is right, and the map is wrong. Over-sight on my part, as the maps were based on maps of the our timeline I found online with edits to update them to my own timeline, and giving Germany those extra couple pixels of territory was something that I forgot to do.

Mustafa Kemal has taken the name Atatürk, and part of the his mission in reforming Turkey was giving the ethnic-enclaves of the country greater autonomy. However, with the discovery of oil in Iraq in the late 20s, there is now a greater push by the Turkish government (as well as their allies in Berlin) to bring the Arab territories under full control once again.

New Britain does belong to Japan. Japan captured it during the Great War, and by war's end, neither Germany nor the United States had the will to retake the island from the Japanese. In the Treaty of Rome, Japan was given New Britain, as well as some other German Pacific possessions, in exchange for some light reparations.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1929 - 1931

Additional troops began arriving in Mexico in the Spring of 1929. By the summer, American troops had seen a number of successes, and public sentiment seemed to once again be on the Prime Minister’s side. Following the Battle of Progreso, where Americans successfully took control of a major rebel port city in late July, Prime Minister Nicholas Longworth flirted with calling elections, but instead, decided to delay them until 1930, when they would occur alongside elections to the Royal Council and when the amendment enacting proportional representation would be fully ratified. Throughout the remainder of 1929 and the early months of 1930, Longworth’s government, mostly under Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State John C. Coolidge and the prominent Minority Whip Franklin D. Roosevelt, passed the Immigration Act of 1929 establishing strict quotas and a budget for 1930 with steep cuts in non-military spending. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Longworth traveled, meeting Latin American leaders in 1929 and traveling to Europe to meet with German, Russian, Italian, British and French leaders in 1930. By the time Longworth had returned, the 22nd Amendment had been ratified, and he dissolved parliament and asked for new elections that November.

The election would see, for the first time since the mid-19th century, four major parties (the Liberals, Populists, SDP, and ILP) as well as numerous smaller parties, encouraged by the recent election reforms. One such party was the American National League (ANL), founded in February 1929 by veterans of the wars in Canada, Europe and Mexico. The party was strongly nationalist and pro-expansion, with some going so far as to label it a fascist party, in the mold of French paramilitary groups or Mussolini’s supporters. Indeed, in the months before the November election, ANL members, dressed in gray uniforms (and thus dubbed “grayshirts” by the American media) held large rallies in a number of American cities. At the first ANL convention, held in Nashville, Tennessee, Gen. Smedley Butler, commanding general of the army in Ireland during the Great War and now in Mexico, was offered the position of party leader, though he refused. Instead, after three ballots, Alvin York, a decorated seargant who had spent many years in numerous theaters of war, was elected party leader. York, in his acceptance speech, blamed the problems in Mexico on American cowardice, attacking the government for not “annexing the whole damned country when they had the chance!” 

The other parties had much less eventful conventions. At the Populist convention, Party Leader John W. Davis was defeated, and replaced with the Populist hardliner Theodore G. Bilbo (P-MS). At the SDP convention, the 51-year-old Fransisco Villa was renominated on the first ballot. Villa was confident that, after thirteen years of Liberal rule, the American people would be ready for a change, and even the normally combative New York City Mayor Norman Thomas gave Villa his full approval. At the Liberal convention in Cleveland, Nicholas Longworth was unanimously renominated. At the very first ILP convention, held in Chicago, Hiram Johnson won a majority of votes on the first ballot, and pledged to the American people a “third-way”, between the laissez-faire policies of the Liberals and the socialist policies of the SDP. The ILP convention in October was overshadowed by the Second Battle of Progreso, in which Zapatista forces retook the city, which had been re-garrisoned with Mexican troops. The loss of the city was a major symbolic defeat for Longworth’s government, and public sentiment began to once again turn against him.

In November, Longworth’s Liberal Party was able to hold on to a plurality of seats in the Senate, though they lost their majority. The ANL surprised many when they won a handful of seats, and the Populists and ILP both earned dissapointing results. Fransisco Villa’s SDP, while not gaining a plurality of seats, did gain the most seats and declared victory. Villa immediately began negotiating with the ILP and Populists in hopes of forming a coalition. In the Royal Council, the SDP made major gains, at the expense of the Liberals and Populists. The ILP and ANL, despite decent showings in the nationwide popular vote, failed to gain any seats.

The Senate prior to the Election of 1930:
Liberal Party: 250 Seats
Social Democratic Party: 114 Seats
Populist Party: 61 Seats
Independent Liberal Party: 59 Seats
American National League: 0 Seats
Total: 484 Seats

Map of the Senate Election

The Senate after the Election of 1930:
Liberal Party: 37.9% PV      
      115 CS; 96 PLS; 221 Total Seats (-39)
Social Democratic Party: 31.4% PV
      70 CS; 80 PLS; 150 Total Seats (+36)
Populist Party: 10.3% PV
      37 CS; 26 PLS; 63 Total Seats (+2)
Independent Liberal Party: 13.8% PV
      23 CS; 35 PLS; 58 Total Seats (-1)
American National League: 5.2% PV
      5 CS; 13 PLS; 18 Total Seats (+18)
Other Parties: 1.4% PV
      0 CS; 0 PLS; 0 Total Seats
Total: 500 Seats
(PV= Popular Vote, CS= Constituent Seats, PLS= Party List Seats)

The Royal Council after the Election of 1930:
Liberal Party: 26 Seats (-4)
Populist Party: 10 Seats (+0)
Social Democratic Party: 18 Seats (+4)
Total: 54 Seats

Map of the Royal Council Election

During the weeks immediately following the November election, both Longworth and Villa steadfastly argued that their respective party had won the election. Both leaders quickly refused to join a coalition with the radical ANL, and Hiram Johnson ruled out any coalition with the Liberal Party. On December 7th, Senators in the Populist Party held a meeting in the capital and decided against joining either the Liberals or SDP in a coalition. By late December, it had become clear that the only course of action would be the creation of a grand Liberal-SDP coalition. By January 4th, negotiations between the two parties had concluded, and Prime Minister Longworth released details on his government.

The Second Longworth Cabinet (January 1931):
Prime Minister: Nicholas Longworth (L-OH)
Deputy Prime Minister: Francisco Villa (SDP-HM)
Majority Whip: Joseph W. Martin, Jr. (L-MA)
Secretary of State: Francisco Villa (SDP-HM)
Secretary of the Treasury: John Calvin Coolidge (L-MA)
Secretary of War: Franklin D. Roosevelt (L-NY)
Attorney General: Seymour Stedman (SDP-IL)
Secretary of the Interior: Charles Curtis (L-KS)
Secretary of Agriculture: Henry A. Wallace (SDP-IA)
Secretary of Commerce: Ogden L. Mills (L-NY)
Secretary of Labor: Robert F. Wagner (SDP-NY)

The new government immediately began on a shaky footing. There were constant newspaper reports of internal squabbling between Villa and Longworth and the two struggled to agree on coherent domestic or foreign policy agendas. The debate over the budget was bitter and lasted through the spring. The eventual compromise budget saw modest tax raises, small cuts in tariff rates, and increased military spending. The final vote on the budget saw numerous defections from both SDP and Liberal Senators, but Longworth was able to rope in a handful of ANL, ILP and Populist Senators to get the budget narrowly passed.

Meanwhile, Secretary of War Roosevelt became increasingly focused on the situation in Mexico. During the summer of 1931, General Smedley Butler retired, and was replaced with General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur had privately criticized Butler for not being aggressive enough in destroying resistance to the Mexican regime. Secretary Roosevelt met with MacArthur in October 1931 and assured the general that he had the government’s full backing. MacArthur’s campaign would later be criticized for its at-times overly-aggressive nature and the heavy collateral damage and civilian casualties it incurred, but by the end of 1931, few could deny that he had made significant progress. In the Battle of Cuernavaca in late October, MacArthur nearly reduced the city, a hotbed of Zapatista activity, to rubble, after days of artillery barrages and bitter street fighting. However, in the days after the battle, much of Zapata’s routed army was captured, and in early December, Emiliano Zapata himself was captured by American forces. King Henry and Prime Minister Longworth both celebrated the capture as a major victory in the war and promised that a draw-down in American forces would soon follow.

[Lief 🗽]

Answers to Rocky's questions:

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The Irish gained their independence during the Great War and they are now a fairly stable Republic.

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The situation in Australia is essentially unchanged, though The Statute of Westminster was not passed in 1931, as, following the loss of so much territory during the war, British politicians are very much against letting go, even symbolically, of even more territorial possessions.

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The world economy, at this point, is mostly dominated by the United States, though Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom all have strong economies. As for the second part of your question, you'll need to wait and see.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1932 - 1934

When the Senate reconvened in February 1932, Prime Minister Nicholas Longworth and Secretary of War Franklin Roosevelt met with the King and decided upon a drawdown of American troops serving in Mexico. Over the winter, since Zapata’s capture, violence had died down considerably, and President Obregon had recently been re-elected in a landslide. In the Senate, Longworth and Villa both pushed forward the Veteran’s Benefits Act. The act contained numerous provisions to help returning veterans of the wars in Mexico and Europe, but there were two chief provisions: first, the government would provide veterans one year of unemployment insurance when they returned home and second, the government would grant returning veteran’s bonus certificates that would be redeemable in ten years. The Veteran’s Benefits Act passed with majority support from all five parties in the chamber, and after gaining the Royal Council’s near unanimous approval, King Henry proudly signed the bill into law.

As was largely par for the course in Longworth’s premiership, this legislative success was short-lived. On Monday August the 8th, a day that would come to be known as Black Monday, share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. After years of record growth and a decade largely marked by prosperity, the sudden collapse of stock prices shocked many Americans. Stock prices rebounded slightly that Tuesday, only to fall further until the end of trading on Friday. Compounding the problem, numerous banks, first in New York, but then throughout the country, closed throughout the fall and winter of 1932. The farm crisis, which had largely been ignored by Longworth’s government since it had begun in 1930, also added to the nation’s economic woes.

As the economic downturn worsened through the winter of 1932 and the spring of 1933, the Senate furiously debated what action, if any at all to take. The Liberals stressed a lack of government intervention and increased tariffs. The ILP, whose base was in large part made up of northern farmers, called for immediate farm relief. The Populists largely aligned themselves with the Liberals, supporting a balanced budget and coming out against attempts to fix the recession with heavy government intervention. The SDP was largely split on the issue. The leftist wing of the party, led by New York Mayor Norman Thomas and William Z. Foster in the Senate, railed against big business and demanded that the government empower workers and farmers. Moderates in the party (as well as the party leadership), led by Francisco Villa, sought to quiet the leftist wing. Villa was wary of breaking with Prime Minister Longworth and causing political instability, especially in early 1933 when he (and many others) believed the recession would soon end. Finally, Villa and Longworth agreed on the passage of the Mills-Thomas Tariff, which raised tariff rates dramatically. Despite opposition from many economists, the tariff passed in the Senate, by a vote of 398 to 101. It was quickly passed by the Royal Council and signed into law by King Henry I in April 1933.

The American recession soon hit European nations, many of which had had shaky economies in the late 20s and early 30s already and were greatly dependent on American loans and American trade. Germany, Great Britain and other European nations turned to protectionist policies. In Russia, the economic growth of the 1920s began to slow, though Alexander Kerensky managed to remain popular and fend off electoral challenges from socialist and liberal parties. The Hungarian Soviet Republic was one of the few states that largely avoided the recession, and continued to grow industrially and militarily. For the rest of the world, as international trade came nearly to a halt, 1933 was a dark year. In the United States, it soon became apparent that Mills-Thomas had not solved the problem, and had perhaps exacerbated it. By the fall of 1933, Villa had accepted the arguments of the leftists in his party. In an emergency cabinet meeting in July, Villa pressed for economic intervention. Longworth flatly refused; Villa and his SDP cabinet members resigned from the government the next day. King Henry pressed Longworth for elections, as it had become clear the Liberals had lost power. When a no-confidence motion came before the Senate in early-September, Longworth instructed his party to support the motion. King Henry called for elections that January.

The Liberals held their convention first, in Montreal, Quebec. Longworth, who was in poor health, declined to run again, and Coolidge, his natural successor, also in poor health and foreseeing electoral defeat, declined as well. Secretary of War Franklin Roosevelt also declined to run for the nomination. With the three leaders of the party not running, the Liberals were split. On the twelfth ballot, the convention settled on Royal Councilor R.B. Bennett of New Brunswick, who gave up his seat in the Royal Council to run on the Liberal party list. At the SDP convention, Villa was bitterly opposed by the leftist wing of his party. Moderates in the party lined up behind Villa, while Norman Thomas commanded the left of the party. On the first ballot, Villa eked out a slim majority, 52% to 46%. Villa, in an effort to unite the party, offered Thomas a high-ranking cabinet position if he ran for Senate, and Thomas agreed. In his acceptance speech, Villa called for immediate economic aid and reform and vilified big business and the banks for betraying the American people. At the ILP convention, Hiram Johnson did not run for re-election, and William E. Borah of Lakota won the spot as party leader. The ILP’s platform focused on farm aid, and Borah and ILP leaders hoped to enter into the next government with heavy support from rural voters. The Populists and ANL re-elected Theodore G. Bilbo and Alvin York, respectively. The Populists were hopeful, with many noting that the first Populist government, under Thomas E. Watson, had been elected during a similar economic crisis. The ANL appealed to suffering working class Americans throughout the country, blaming big business, socialists, Jews, blacks, immigrants, and even the monarchy for betraying working Americans.

In January, as was expected, the Liberals suffered a crushing defeat. Their share of the vote fell over 10% since the election of 1930. However, the SDP, confident of victory, actually saw a reduced share of the vote, and only gained a few seats. Southerners turned en masse against the Populists, voting for the ANL and ILP, causing the Populists to fall below the 5% threshold needed for party list seats. Most shocking was the performance of the ANL, which won nearly 1 in 5 voters, though it managed to pick up comparatively few constituency seats.

The Senate after the Election of 1934:
Liberal Party: 26.1% PV   (-11.8%)   
      70 CS; 71 PLS; 141 Total Seats (-80)
Social Democratic Party: 29.5% PV (-1.9%)
      92 CS; 80 PLS; 172 Total Seats (+22)
Populist Party: 3.5% PV (-6.8%)
      23 CS; 0 PLS; 23 Total Seats (-40)
Independent Liberal Party: 18.2% PV (+5.4%)
      40 CS; 49 PLS; 89 Total Seats (+31)
American National League: 18.5% PV (+13.3%)
      25 CS; 50 PLS; 75 Total Seats (+57)
Other Parties: 4.2% PV (+1.8%)¹
      0 CS; 0 PLS; 0 Total Seats
Total: 500 Seats

Map of Constituent Seat Breakdown Following the Election of 1934

Following the election, SDP Party Head Francisco Villa met with ILP Party Head William E. Borah and the two quickly negotiated a coalition agreement. The Populists and Liberals also entered into a coalition, as the official opposition. The ANL, despite its gains, was once again shunned by all four parties. In February, after leading the SDP for nearly 14 years, Francisco Villa, son of Mexican immigrants, became the first SDP Prime Minister.

The First Villa Cabinet (February 1934):
Prime Minister: Francisco Villa (SDP-HM)
Deputy Prime Minister: William E. Borah (ILP-LK)
Majority Whip: Henry A. Wallace (SDP-IA)
Secretary of State: William E. Borah (ILP-LK)
Secretary of the Treasury: Norman Thomas (SDP-NY)
Secretary of War: William Z. Foster (SDP-MA)
Attorney General: Seymour Stedman (SDP-IL)
Secretary of the Interior: Elmer A. Benson (ILP-WI)
Secretary of Agriculture: Alf Landon (ILP-KS)
Secretary of Commerce: Burton K. Wheeler (ILP-MT)
Secretary of Labor: J. S. Woodsworth (SDP-ON)

Villa quickly set about trying to end the economic crisis. Since the Senate had been dissolved in the fall of 1933, the international economy had worsened further, and American unemployment had reached over 15%. Villa’s first address to the Senate was a bitter denunciation of business: “The bankers and financiers, the businesses, and the capitalists of our society have owned the government and exploited the worker since Alexander Hamilton stood before this body. That era, that era of laissez-faire and wage slavery, is finally at an end.”

¹A number of minor parties also did surprisingly well in the election of 1934, including the American Communist Party, which gathered 2.1% nationwide, as well as some regional separatist parties that played on the economic woes of their respective regions, in Cuba and the Canadian states. None of these parties, however, won any constituency seats or reached the 5% party list seat threshold.

[Lief 🗽]

Death of the Populists?

I'd love an Asia update.

Maybe, maybe not.

Do you have specific questions about Asia? Things are largely unchanged from events in our own timeline, to the extent that I wouldn't really be able to write an entire update about Asia without just copying large swaths of Wikipedia.

[Lief 🗽]

I'm very sorry about the lack of updates, but the past couple of weeks have been very busy, with the end of the school year and stuff. I graduate from high school in early June, and at that time I expect to be able to update much more frequently.

[Lief 🗽]

Update(s) is(are) coming within the next few days.

Thank you for your patience.

[Lief 🗽]

I'm working on it, don't worry. I want to write, or at least, outline it a bit further, so I know where I'm going with everything. I do fully intend to finish the timeline by the end of the summer though.

[Lief 🗽]

I'll probably end it around 2010, as I don't really feel up to writing an alternate history science fiction time line.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1934 - 1938

Prime Minister Francisco Villa aimed to move fast as his Social Democratic Party took control of the government for the first time. His party authored and submitted numerous bills in the opening months of Villa’s premiership. As the Senate debated, Villa met with King Henry in early March 1934 at the King’s palace in Arlington, Virginia. For most of his reign, the King had largely ignored domestic issues, preferring to focus on matters of foreign policy. Villa, however, was worried that the monarch would veto attempts to intervene in the economy or nationalize industry. After a day of meeting, Henry, in what would be termed the Arlington Declaration¹ vowed to allow the elected government to do whatever was needed to end the crisis. The trouble for Villa, however, was the Royal Council, which was still fully controlled by the Liberal-Populist coalition. As such, much of Villa’s agenda was stalled through the spring and summer of 1934, as his party prepared for the November Royal Council elections. Villa’s government did manage to pass the Banking Stabilization Act to aid in reopening banks under the supervision of the Treasury Ministry, after months of negotiation with Liberal councilors.

To Villa’s delight, the November elections saw strong gains for the SDP and ILP. The Populist party, hoping to rebound from their wipe-out in the Senate, lost nearly all their seats, and vote splitting in the South and Midwest between the SDP, ILP, ANL and Populist Party resulted in a number of odd results. Shockingly, the ANL continued to grow, knocking off Populist incumbents in Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as winning the open seat in Louisiana, in thanks largely to the ANL political machine in the state controlled by Governor Huey Long.

The Royal Council after the Election of 1934:
Liberal Party: 18 Seats (-8)
Populist Party: 2 Seats (-8)
Social Democratic Party: 24 Seats (+6)
Independent Liberal Party: 7 Seats (+7)
American National League: 3 Seats (+3)
Total: 54 Seats

The Royal Council Following the Election of 1934

When the Senate and Royal Council reconvened in 1935, Villa began his legislative agenda in earnest. In March, his government passed the Railroad Act and the Banking Act, which nationalized major railways and major banks. Secretary of the Treasury Norman Thomas argued that the depression had been caused by irresponsible bankers and business-owners, and pointed to the nationalization of major railways and banks as an attempt by the government to insure that they were run fairly and honestly². Major railroad corporations and banks would soon sue the government for their attempts at nationalization, culminating in the 1936 Supreme Court case Stedman v. Union Pacific, which held that both the Railroad Act and the Banking Act, and other attempts at nationalizing industry, were unconstitutional. Nearly 20 years of Liberal control of the court had resulted in a Supreme Court wholly opposed to Villa’s government’s more radical approaches to the economy.

The SDP government did manage to pass less controversial measures throughout 1935 and 1936. In late 1935, the Labor Organization Protection Act was passed, guaranteeing most private sector workers the right to organize, engage in collective bargaining and go on strike. In early 1936, the act was amended to include agricultural workers and railway workers. Also in 1935, the national minimum wage was increased to 35 cents an hour. Finally, the 1935 Fair Labor Standards Act, commonly known as the Norris Act after Senator George Norris (SDP-NE), was also passed. The Norris Act instituted a maximum work-week of 45 hours and completely outlawed child labor. Collectively, these three acts came to be known as the Labor Laws of 1935, and won the SDP much support from union workers and the working class across the country.

Following the 1936 Stedman v. Union Pacific decision, Villa’s government instead turned to increased regulation and cooperation with corporations to fix the economic malaise the country was still mired in. In 1936, the Senate created the Industrial-Labor-Governmental Relations Board, which met with members of industry and business and labor leaders, and encouraged businesses to stabilize prices, wages and production. 23rd Nonetheless, Villa and his government remained committed to nationalization, and in the second half of 1936, they sought to pass an amendment to the constitution allowing the government to nationalize industry. While the SDP was able to garner ILP support for the amendment, it required 2/3 of Senators to vote for passage. In September, Alvin York, leader of the ANL, approached the Prime Minister with the offer of his party’s support in exchange for increased military funding in the next budget; the combined SDP, ILP and ANL vote would be just over 2/3. The ANL was a far-right, borderline-fascist party, and the SDP and ILP had fought strongly to drastically curb military spending, but Villa understood that he needed the ANL’s support if he was to pass the amendment. Eventually, Villa agreed, and what would become the 23rd Amendment was passed in November 1936.

Through 1937, the economy began to improve, helped along by massive government spending and investment. The Public Works Administration, created in 1936, spent billions on the creation of public works across the country to provide employment. With urging from the ANL and Liberal Party, the government also spent heavily on modernizing the army and navy, primarily through the building of numerous new battleships and carriers. As the year 1937 came to an end, with the economy rapidly improving and the 23rd amendment not yet fully ratified by the states, Villa tried to focus on foreign policy, particularly with regards to America’s African colonies. Villa had opposed the continued occupation of the colonies, as well as the 1925 purchase of Madagascar, while he led the SDP opposition during the 1920s. Now that was he was in charge of the government, Villa, with the full support of his party and the isolationist ILP, passed numerous bills calling for the independence of American African possessions by 1950. King Henry would quickly veto these bills, arguing that America needed her colonial possessions to remain a world power. Despite this setback, Villa’s premiership had been largely successful, and a Gallup poll released in early 1938 put the government’s approval rating at 61%. As such, Francisco Villa had the Senate dissolved in March of 1938, and asked King Henry for elections by the summer.

¹The Arlington Declaration would be accepted by later monarchs, and is now recognized as a turning point in American history with regards to the power of the monarchy. King Henry and his successors would, after February 1934, largely leave the Senate and the Royal Council to decide domestic and economic matters.
²Nationalization of the railroad industry had been a major policy goal of Thomas Watson’s Populist Party, before it had largely come under control the control of more liberal politicians during the 1920s. When the SDP broke from the Populists under Eugene V. Debs, railroad nationalization remained a plank in their platform.

[Lief 🗽]

The next update will be another international update.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarch: The World in the 1930s

In the United Kingdom, the 1929 General Election had resulted in a returned Conservative government headed by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The Labour Party had initially hoped to gain a majority, but was disappointingly defeated. Much of the party placed the blame squarely at Labour Party leader Ramsay MacDonald’s feet. The Depression hit Britain in late 1933, and Baldwin’s government was largely unable to deal with the crisis in the lead up to the 1934 General Election. In the run-up to the 1934 election, Labour MP Oswald Mosley was able to seize control of the party from the still unpopular MacDonald. Running on a slogan of “New Labour, New Britain”, Mosley’s “New Labour” was able to win a plurality of seats in the 1934 election, on a platform of high tariffs, public works programs, and nationalist, anti-Irish and anti-American rhetoric. With a hung parliament, another election was called for 1935. This time, as the economy had continued to sour, and with continued unrest on the continent, Britons turned to Mosley’s New Labour as the answer, giving the party a majority of nearly 100 seats. From 1935 until the General Election of 1939, Mosley was able to get most of his agenda passed, and his party became incredibly popular among the working class. Mosley had the support of King Edward VIII through the 1930s, and the King was instrumental in helping Prime Minister Mosley accomplish House of Lords reform in 1938. Mosley’s government also focused on British rearmament, increasing the size of the British Navy, and using heavy propaganda to increase the size of the army and turn public sentiment even further against the “back-stabbing” Irish and the United States. In 1939, Mosley’s New Labour was returned with a 200-seat majority in the House of Commons, running on a platform of continued economic assistance, strengthening the Empire, and, in a frightening move, retaking lands lost in the World War.

France, since its loss to and partial occupation by the German Reich following the World War, had gone through a decade of political and economic instability when the economic Depression hit the country in the early 30s. Germany, which was also hard hit, began pulling troops out of eastern France, and American and German loans soon dried up. In November 1934, Prime Minister Albert Sarraut (a centrist and member of the Radical Party), was assassinated, and seemingly overnight the Third Republic ceased to exist, as destitute Frenchmen lined up behind various paramilitary groups. Far-right groups, loosely aligned under the banner of Charles Maurras’s Action Française, rioted in the streets of major cities throughout the winter, and by 1935 socialist and communist counter-demonstrations were taking place. As the two groups increasingly came into combat with another the country descended into civil war, pitting the far-right against the far-left, with centrist groups largely caught in the middle. By 1936, Maurras and his far-right union had taken control of much of the country (in large part due to heavy support from Mussolini’s Italy).

After purging rebellious elements of his coalition, Maurras invited Jean d'Orléans, the Orleanist claimant to the French throne, to return to France, where he was crowned Jean III, King of France. Jean III proved to be little more than a figurehead, however, as Maurras and his Action Française backers controlled France’s domestic and foreign policy. French soldiers, along with Italian forces, would enter Spain in 1937 to aid Francisco Franco and his Nationalist Party in the Spanish Civil War. Soviet Hungary, a natural ally of the leftist Republicans, was largely unable to influence the conflict, and though the British considered intervening in the conflict, Prime Minister Mosley was wary of involving his nation in continental affairs, and especially did not want to needlessly antagonize the French or Italians. By 1938, Franco had seized control of Spain, and in October of 1939, the Tripartite Pact was signed by the French, Italians and Spanish. When Jean III died in 1939, he was succeeded by his son, who became King Henri VI.

Germany, like the rest of the world, was hard hit by the economic slump, but after its victory in the war, it had been able to remain politically stable, unlike many of its neighbors. There was unrest, however, as the economic conditions in the country deteriorated. Many Germans took to the streets, asking not just for food and employment, but for the democratic freedoms and civil liberties they had been promised at the end of the war. When Wilhelm II refused to liberalize the government, far-right and leftist groups surged in popularity. On February 27th, 1936, fascist groups bombed the Reichstag, heavily damaging the German parliament. Following the bombing, a general strike in March brought the city of Berlin to its knees as thousands of protestors and strikers took to the streets. Though he initially, at the behest of his generals, contemplated sending the army at the protestors, Kaiser Wilhelm II was convinced against it in April by King Henry I of the United States and the Kaiser’s son-in-law King Carlos I of Mexico. On April 27th, a month after the bombing, Wilhelm, in failing health abdicated, and his son, Wilhelm III, became Kaiser, with a promise of democratization and reform. By 1937, a new German constitution had been drafted, largely based on the American model of republican monarchy. In the 1938 elections, the Social Democratic Party, led by Otto Wels, were the big winners, with Wels becoming Chancellor. Despite Germany’s largely peaceful liberalization, however, the country still faced many problems, with a soaring national debt and a hostile Tripartite Pact at its doorstep.

As the various western nations of the world, from the United States to Britain to Germany were concerned with their own domestic issues, Hungary, a communist state under Bela Kun, was largely unaffected by the economic slump. Hungary, which had become the regional industrial and military power during the 1920s, used its influence to topple democratic governments throughout the Balkans, as communist groups came to power in Yugoslavia and Romania. In Albania, the German puppet government was overthrown in 1936, and replaced with a Hungarian-backed communist government. In 1937, Hungary, with the support of its new allies, invaded Serbia. After an eight month struggle, Serbia fell, and Hungary, after annexing some land, installed yet another communist puppet government.

In 1938, Bela Kun died, and he was succeeded by Sándor Garbai. The Balkans, which had once been a focal point of the European powers, had been ignored for nearly two decades by the time Garbai came to power in Hungary. Confident that Europe would continue to ignore his growing political bloc, Garbai turned his eyes to Turkey. In 1939, Hungary and Greece (under a military dictatorship), joined into an alliance, as Hungary supported Romania’s invasion of Bulgaria¹. In Turkey, Ismet Inonu had succeeded Atatürk in 1938, and there was growing worry of the expansionist Hungary and its ally in Greece. Turkey could no longer count on German protection either; Turkey and Germany were no longer allies, as they had been during the early 1920s. Turkey had spent much of the 1930s liberalizing at home while fighting Arabian and Kurdish rebels in its outlying regions, and when Germany had refused to continue sending Turkey military aid when the Depression hit, the two countries had largely cut-off diplomatic relations.

In Russia, the economy was hard-hit by the economic slump, as much of the rapid growth of the 1920s had been fueled by American investment and trade. Nonetheless, Kerensky was incredibly popular, and the only alternatives were a far-left Bolshevik party tainted by the Leninist revolution of the early 1920s and the classical liberal Constitutional Democratic Party. In 1936 elections, Kerensky’s government was returned yet again. Through vast public works projects and government spending, Kerensky was able to partially alleviate the Depression, though the government entered into a large debt as the 1930s ended, worried by its militaristic neighbors, Hungary and Japan.

In 1931, the militaristic Japanese state invaded Manchuria, creating the puppet state of Manchuko. The United States refused to recognize Manchuko, and in support of the Chinese, went before the League of Nations; Japan, insulted, left the League of Nations later that year. In 1936, Japan and the United Kingdom signed the Second Anglo-Japanese in London, as both nations saw the United States as a potential antagonist. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China (which itself was in the middle of civil war), sparking the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese boasted that they would have China conquered in three months, but, in the Battle of Shanghai, the Chinese proved resilient, though they ultimately lost the city after a four-month long siege. Following Shanghai, Japan appealed to Britain for assistance, and in the summer of 1938, British forces from India and Burma and ANZAC forces began their invasion of Southern China. The Chinese quickly counter-attacked, hoping to sap British morale. In the Battle of Hong Kong, in March 1939, British defenders held the Chinese back for three weeks, before a British counter-attack ended the siege. The British victory had the opposite effect the Chinese had intended; Chinese morale was quickly sapped, as the British rallied around a significant colonial victory for the first time since they had lost Canada.

¹Bulgaria had conquered land from Romania during the World War, and Romania, with the urging of Garbai’s government, sought to reclaim it in the Romanian-Bulgarian War of 1939.

[Lief 🗽]

I wanted to post that update before I went to bed, so there may be some mistakes. I'll also answer your questions tomorrow, but for now please enjoy.

[Lief 🗽]

The American Monarchy: 1938 - 1941

Prime Minister Francisco Villa entered into the summer 1938 elections immensely popular. The 59-year-old Villa was re-nominated unanimously at the SDP convention in Philadelphia, where he called for even further progress: nationalization of major industry following final ratification of the 23rd amendment, national healthcare, social security, and civil rights legislation. Villa would spend the rest of the spring and the summer focused on foreign policy, particularly the situation in China and relations with Ireland. In March 1938, he finalized the Irish-American Defensive Pact, after months of negotiation and a two-week visit to Ireland with Crown Prince Robert. At the ILP convention in Kansas City, there were calls from many delegates to disband the party and join the SDP, as there were fears that the SDP would win a majority of seats and no longer need the ILP in their coalition. The motion was narrowly defeated, mostly due to apprehension from the isolationist wing of the party, following the Irish-American treaty.  William Borah declined to run for re-election as party leader, and Kansas Senator Alf Landon was elected as party head on the fourth ballot. At the Liberal Party convention, held in Boston, R.B. Bennett was challenged for the nomination by Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, an ardent isolationist who opposed Villa's treaty. Bennet, an interventionist, supported the treaty. Vandenberg defeated Bennett 57% to 41%, and Bennett quickly endorsed him, though some interventionist Liberals walked out of the convention. A week later, at the Populist convention held in Richmond, Virginia, Theodore G. Bilbo also lost his bid for re-election as party leader. Hugo Black, a former Royal Councilor from Mississippi who had lost his seat in the 1934 election by less than 5,000 votes eventually won election as Populist Party leader. While Black promised a revival of the party, it had, in the four years since its landslide 1934 defeat, fallen apart in many ways, losing many of its financial backers and struggling to recruit candidates. Finally, at the ANL convention held in late May, Alvin York was easily re-nominated, and the party platform was re-written to emphasize a strong military and protecting American interests around the world, in an attempt to gain the support of interventionist Liberals.

The June election saw a landslide victory for the SDP, as the party gained control of a majority of the seats in the Senate. The Populist Party’s vote share fell to a new low of 2.4%, only 0.9% higher than that of the Communist Party. The Liberal Party again suffered losses, and the ILP was surprised to see their vote share decrease, as many of their voters switched to the SDP. Besides Villa’s party, the only party to increase their total vote share was the ANL, which shockingly won the second highest popular vote share. The Senate would only briefly reconvene that fall to overwhelmingly approve the Irish-American Defensive Pact, before the Royal Council elections that fall, which saw further SDP gains.

The Senate after the Election of 1938:
Liberal Party: 20.7% PV   (-5.4%)   
39 CS; 55 PLS; 94 Total Seats (-47)
Social Democratic Party: 40.8% PV (+11.3%)
162 CS; 108 PLS; 270 Total Seats (+98)
Populist Party: 2.4% PV (-1.1%)
5 CS; 0 PLS; 5 Total Seats (-18)
Independent Liberal Party: 11.6% PV (-6.6%)
11 CS; 31 PLS; 42 Total Seats (-47)
American National League: 21.7% PV (+3.2%)
33 CS; 56 PLS; 89 Total Seats (+14)
Other Parties: 2.8% PV (-1.4%)
   0 CS; 0 PLS; 0 Total Seats
Total: 500 Seats

Map

The Royal Council after the Election of 1938:
Liberal Party: 10 Seats (-8)
Social Democratic Party: 35 Seats (+11)
Independent Liberal Party: 4 Seats (-3)
American National League: 5 Seats (+2)
Total: 54 Seats

Map

The Second Villa Cabinet (July 1938):
Prime Minister: Francisco Villa (SDP-HM)
Deputy Prime Minister: Norman Thomas (SDP-NY)
Majority Whip: Harry S Truman (SDP-MO)
Secretary of State: Norman Thomas (SDP-NY)
Secretary of the Treasury: Henry A. Wallace (SDP-IA)
Secretary of War: Robert F. Wagner (SDP-NY)
Attorney General: Seymour Stedman (SDP-IL)
Secretary of the Interior: Glen H. Taylor (SDP-LK)
Secretary of Agriculture: Sam Rayburn (SDP-TX)
Secretary of Commerce: Harry Hopkins (SDP-NY)
Secretary of Labor: J. S. Woodsworth (SDP-ON)

When the Senate reconvened in 1939, the focus was, much to Villa’s disappointment, foreign policy. The war in China had become increasingly bloody, as Japanese and British forces pushed into the country from the north and south, respectively. Alvin York, leader of the ANL, called on Villa to stand up to the British-Japanese alliance, warning that, if he did not, they would soon rest their eyes on American possessions. Opposition Leader Vandenberg seemed to come to Villa’s defense, warning that an American excursion in China would lead to the unneeded deaths of thousands of Americans. In April 1939, after a series of bitter meetings with his cabinet (which was largely split between isolationist and interventionists), Villa agreed to send a detachment of the Pacific fleet to the Philippines, along with an additional 30,000 American troops. In the summer of 1939, as Oswald Mosley won a landslide re-election in the United Kingdom, Secretary of State Norman Thomas was in Europe before the League of Nations, demanding that Britain halt its invasion of China; a week later, the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted in favor of leaving the League. Meanwhile, in the United States, Villa had turned back to his domestic agenda. With the passage of the 23rd amendment in late 1938, the SDP-dominated Senate easily re-passed the Railroad Act and the Banking Act, nationalizing major railway lines and banks. The passage of these acts, now constitutional, was applauded by the left, but the Liberal Party fiercely opposed it, and petitioned King Henry to veto the bills, which he refused, arguing that they represented the will of the people.

As 1940 began, Prime Minister Villa and his government attempted to continue to push forward with their domestic agenda, but the Senate was once again distracted by international developments. In China, Chinese forces had attempted another assault on Hong Kong, believing that, if they took the British enclave, they would be able to end British involvement. The assault, began in late 1939, was called off by the spring of 1940, with the British defenders again having turned back the Chinese assault. By the end of the Second Battle of Hong Kong, nearly 350,000 Chinese soldiers were dead, with British and Japanese losses at about 100,000. On April 19th, the British Field Marshall Harold Alexander began a massive assault on the important southern Chinese city of Kunming, where Chinese forces had been heavily fortified. In the United States Senate, Shadow Secretary of War William Dudley Pelley, an ANL Senator from Carolina, demanded that America intervene, before Kunming fell and “Britain, the eternal enemy of American freedom, controls the entire orient!” In May, as the Battle of Kunming continued to rage, Villa presented the Lend-Lease Act to the Senate, permitting the King to supply the Chinese government with vast amounts of war material. Though his party was split on intervening in China, the folksy and charming Majority Whip Harry Truman was able to twist enough SDP arms to get most of the party voting for the act. Along with ANL support, the Lend-Lease Act was passed 303 to 195 in late May.

Following the summer recess, the Senate returned to domestic policy. After a month of debate and amendments, King Henry signed the Social Security Act of 1940 into law in September 1940. Villa, though initially pleased with the passage of the landmark legislation, was frustrated once again when, just a week later, on September 19th, Kunming fell to British forces. Villa called an emergency cabinet meeting, and the King arranged a meeting between Villa, his cabinet, the monarch and his advisors. King Henry argued that, if the United States waited much longer to intervene in China, then it would be too late. Secretary of War Wagner argued that the American people wouldn’t support an unprovoked declaration of war against the British and Japanese and that the United States was not prepared for war in China or the inevitable naval conflicts in the Pacific and Atlantic. As the meeting ended, the king and the cabinet agreed to wait on entering into the conflict formally and continue funding the Chinese war effort. When the Prime Minister returned to the Senate, he oversaw passage of the Two-Ocean Navy Act, which called for an increase in the United States Navy by 50%, and the Selective Training and Service Act, beginning the first peacetime draft in the country’s history. When 1941 began, the outlook in China was still grim, though a change in Chinese strategy, as well as the support of American weapons and money, had slowed down the British and Japanese advances. The Americans had encouraged the Chinese to go on the defensive and used scorched-earth tactics and guerilla warfare to slow down the Japanese and British.

On Easter Sunday, 1941, three bombs exploded outside the Belfast City Hall, killing two British soldiers and nineteen civilians. The next day, Prime Minister Oswald Mosley blamed the terrorist attack on the Irish government, and within days, the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic were at war.

[Lief 🗽]

Just read through the last updates I had missed over the past weeks. Excellent job!

A few questions though, on OTL Canadian politicians. What are Mackenzie King, Maurice Duplessis, and Tommy Douglas doing in this timeline? Also, who are the Royal Councillors from Ontario and Quebec?

Thanks

William Lyon Mackenzie King was, for a time, a Liberal Senator from Ontario, and a supporter of Roosevelt and the progressive faction of the Liberals. When the ILP split from the Liberals, he did not follow them, and chose not to stand for re-election. He is currently an advisor to King Henry.

Maurice Duplessis is the leader of Quebecois-branch of the Liberal Party. He and his supporters took control of the Quebec Liberal Party in 1936, kicking out the leadership that had been allied with the national party. Though the Liberals lost a Senate seat in Quebec in 1938, they, under Duplessis, increased their margins in the state legislature and held on to the Quebec Royal Council seat, currently held by Camillien Houde.

Tommy Douglas is a social activist and minister in the state of Madison (which is the state made up of our Alberta and Saskatchewan) and a supporter of the SDP. He ran for Senate in 1938 against incumbent ILP Senator John Edward Brownlee, but lost narrowly. He plans to stand for the seat again in the next election.

Arthur Meighen is the Royal Councilor from Quebec.

[Lief 🗽]

Not at the moment, no. A lot of soldiers and war material are being pulled out of India to support British forces on the Chinese front.

[Lief 🗽]

Gandhi is a major figure within the Indian National Congress and the independence movement. He, as well as the rest of the Indian National Congress, opposed the war with China from the beginning, especially because of the use of Indian troops in the fighting. This opposition to the war has led Gandhi and other Indian leaders to more forcefully call for independence. He, along with Nehru and other leaders, was arrested by the British in 1941.

[Lief 🗽]

Gandhi is a major figure within the Indian National Congress and the independence movement. He, as well as the rest of the Indian National Congress, opposed the war with China from the beginning, especially because of the use of Indian troops in the fighting. This opposition to the war has led Gandhi and other Indian leaders to more forcefully call for independence. He, along with Nehru and other leaders, was arrested by the British in 1941.

Is there any equivalent of the WWII-era INA?

Not as of the end of 1940, no.