The American Monarchy

[Хahar 🤔]

Nice update! I get the feeling that we'll be seeing more frequent updates?

Keep telling yourself that.

[Kevinstat]

Nice update! I get the feeling that we'll be seeing more frequent updates?

You jinxed it! 

[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.

[Хahar 🤔]

[Kaine for Senate '18]

What is the situation in the Middle East at the moment?

[Kevinstat]

Congratulations on your graduation, assuming it has happened by now.

Oh yeah, BUMP!

[Lief 🗽]

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

Thank you for your patience.

[Хahar 🤔]

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

Thank you for your patience.

I have to say you're stretching it.

[Kevinstat]

One reason I'll probably never do a timeline is I wouldn't want people pestering me to update it all the time.  We should all be patient and be greatful for all the great installments we have already read.

Btw, how's it coming on that update, Leif? 

[Хahar 🤔]

One reason I'll probably never do a timeline is I wouldn't want people pestering me to update it all the time.  We should all be patient and be greatful for all the great installments we have already read.

Btw, how's it coming on that update, Leif? 

And you're never on.

Come on, Kevin. You could make a good one.

[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.

[War on Want]

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.

Yay!!! Are you going extend it to the future?

[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.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Fantastic update

Can you talk about the Middle East in the next update?

[Хahar 🤔]

Yes!

[War on Want]

Yay!!! I am loving the leftism of America right now.

[MasterJedi]

Nice update! I hope that idiotic amendment fails, or if it doesn't I hope it screws the economy to get those socialists out of power!

[War on Want]

Nice update! I hope that idiotic amendment fails, or if it doesn't I hope it screws the economy to get those socialists out of power!

I hope it passes

[Hash]

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

[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.

[Хahar 🤔]

Ew...Moseley. Where are the Liberals at this point?

Also, care to give an analysis of the Reichstag?

[War on Want]

Interesting stuff, I liked how you made Mosley into more of a Populist-Socialist rather than turn him into a Fascist which he later became.