Southern Victory Series, by Harry Turtledove
Intro
The Southern Victory series (also given the name of Timeline-191 for fans) is a collection of 11 books telling the story of what if the Confederacy won the American Civil War? Along with the road the rest of the world takes because of this outcome, spanning from the 1860s, all the way up to the mid-1940s.
With an exciting and new visual imagination on the wide parts of Northern America's change of path -experienced by a large and wide variety of characters in this new world- Harry Turtledove knocks it out of the park in his telling of this new piece of alternate history!
Get a quick snippet of each book's premise below, but be warn!...Spoilers ahead (read books first you won't regret it!)
On September 9, 1862, an order dubbed by General Robert E. Lee as Special Order 191, written and wrapped into some cigars, was dropped during an advance by Confederate forces. However, it is quickly recovered and, instead of the Bloodiest Day in American history occurring, Antietam. Lee catches the Army of the Potomac, led by McClellan, entirely off guard at Camp Hill. Defeat him, and move towards Philadelphia. Occupying it...
Decades after the second humiliating defeat inflicted on the USA by her southern neighbor, the CSA, tensions in Europe boil and soon erupt into open conflict. Pitting the two former united states to enter the fray. With the U.S., German Empire, and the Central Powers on one side. And the C.S, Britain and France and the Entente on the other. Who will be left on this new theater of the first World War?
With the trenches locking almost all combatants in place from 1915-1916. New weapons, tactics, and savagery increases. Ravaging not only the battlefields of Europe but the North American continent in the air, land, and sea. And with the United Stated locked against the Canadians, Mormons, and other Entente forces all around them. And the Confederates against the Red Uprisings in their own backyard. One side, eventually, will break.
As the Great War enters its third and bloodiest year across a front stretching from Virginia's shores, all the way down near the Pacific over North America. New innovations and battle strategies are initiated to break the deadlock between the United States and the Confederacy. And with the production of new weapons, known as barrels, coming to the chessboard. A way to end the war, favorable, comes to light.
With a Central Power victory -and thus a United States one- the victors install harsh treaties on their beaten-down enemies with the CSA being no exception. Having much of her land taken away and forced to pay reparations, while having inflation never before seen. Radical elements begin to take shape in Confederate politics. Bringing forth something terrible in the near future.
The decade following the end of the Great War brought a dramatic change in power. And those aiming to regain their former glory of the past. Yet, when the Stock Market crashes, due to Russia being unable to repay Austro-Hungarian banks from the war, it sends the world into a profound depression. As a dying radical right-wing party, the Freedom Party gains moment at an astonishing scale. With their leader, Jake Featherston, steering to do more than bring the Confederate States off its knees.
Jake Featherston, after successfully taking control of the CSA and installing the Freedom Party to power above all else. Looks to improve relations with his northern neighbor. To get their issues settled, he slowly builds up his country for another war with the United States. And while his allies to do the same, he starts by taking out some "loose ends" still lingering around and thumping their noses where they don't belong in and out of his party.
1941. Jake Featherston launches Operation Blackbeard, the invasion of Ohio, to cut the United States in half and kicked them between the teeth in a war of lighting speed and tactics. The USA struggles to hold back the Confederate advance and her territories acquired in Utah, Canada, and in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans from other Entente forces. Kicking off this new, deadly type of war.
After a near decisive thrust into the North and cutting her off from west to east through Ohio (even after U.S. President Al Smith was killed) -the United States still refuses to surrender. And, with repeated failed attempts to take Richmond, the Confederate President, Jake Featherston, orders a second mechanized offensive into the USA's manufacturing heartland. An offensive that will lay everything on the line for both American countries, out east!
With the Mormons being put to rest, Featherston's country fighting a guerrilla war against its negros. The U.S.A., coming back after its victory at Pittsburgh, takes the fight to the Confederacy. But, with every inch deeper into its southern neighbor paid with more blood -what dark horror indeed rests in the C.S.A. concentration camps?
The year is 1944. As Featherston and the Confederacy are being pushed on all fronts, the secret bomb project all combatants have been trying to bear fruit: finally do. In a last hail mary, is this the CSA's final chance at ultimate victory? Or complete and devastating destruction?
