American War | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Cold War | |||||||
![]() Clockwise from top left: American troops landing outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the 101st Airborne Division charges Stonewall Ridge in Point Pleasant, Virginia; a Canadian volunteer after setting fire to a cleared holdout in Key West, Florida; Confederate troops surrendering to an American division; American troops landing in Raleigh, North Carolina |
|||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
![]() ![]() ![]() Supported by: | ![]() ![]() ![]() Supported by: ![]() |
||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The American War (also known by other names) was a military conflict that took place in North America, from 1961 to approximately 1978. It was the largest conflict in the history of the New World. The war resulted in the reestablishment of the Confederacy's authority and the dissolution of the communist regime, which had begun in 1943. The conflict, though largely limited to the modern Confederate States, had a substantial spillover into Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as several U.S. states where skirmishes as well as terrorist attacks pursued into the mid-1970s. The C.A.S.S. was supported by the Soviet Union, whereas the United States was supported by its European and North American allies and Mexico.
During the economic disparities of the 1930s, present globally in the aftermath of the Anglo-American War, stagnation in the Confederate States of America as well as the assassination of the popular president Huey Long led to a civil war, beginning in 1935. Lasting eight years, the conflict ended in a Communist victory in 1943. The United States, despite opposition to the Soviet Union's expansion, remained unconcerned and only sent limited financial aid to the flailing regime, which took asylum within them following the victory of the Communists. After the larger onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s, the United States assumed military readiness and closed its borders with its southern neighbor. Conflict between the two nations had continued in the form of border skirmishes originating as far back as 1921, however the war is agreed to have begun on April 17, 1961, following the discovery of plans by the Soviet Union to arm the C.A.S.S. with nuclear weapons. Following this, President Kennedy ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time, and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000. U.S. forces, for most of the conflict, relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes.
The Confederation of American Socialist States was ill-prepared for the invasion, and following the loss of Richmond on May 25, undertook a strategic defense based in guerilla warfare. Kennedy's assassination while visiting the occupied city of Dallas on November 22, 1963 would result in a public outcry and beginning of the second phase of the war, in which President Nelson Rockefeller began a carpet-bombing campaign to wipe out remaining Confederate resistance. Public support for the United States' effort waned at home and abroad in the years following 1965, and the decade's counterculture formulated popular opposition to the war as well as the Rockefeller administration. Presidents Nixon and Agnew began a "Neutralization" program in 1971, involving the replacement of American ground forces by Confederate loyalists and agitators who opposed the communist regime. The conflict came to an end on 26 April 1978, following the unofficial surrender of the C.A.S.S. regime, which disintegrated under the weight of the Kennedy Agreement.
The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Confederate soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Mexicans, 20,000–62,000 Canadians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict. The end of the American War would precipitate the Caribbean refugee crisis, which saw millions of refugees leave Cuba, an estimated 250,000 of whom perished at sea. The United States' use of chemical and biological warfare in small circles of the conflict has also generated domestic and public controversy, and the fallout of the conflict was a leading factor in the Progressive dominance of United States politics in the 1980s.
Names[]
Various names have been applied to the conflict. "American War" is the most commonly used name in English. It has also been called the "Second North American War" and the "Confederate Conflict". Pejorative names for the war vary, and historians only use the aforementioned three due to their acceptance outside of the cultural lexicon.
Given that there have been several conflicts in the Americas, this particular conflict is known by its primary protagonists' names to distinguish it from others. In the modern Confederate States, the war is generally known as the "Second War of Northern Aggression". It is also sometimes called the "Yankee War" and the "American-Confederate War".
Background[]
Political instability and the Confederate Civil War[]
Aftermath of the Anglo-American War[]
Following the Confederacy's loss in the Anglo-American War, in which the Confederate government under Robert Latham Owen agreed to peace in which all territories gained in the war would be returned to the United States. The unpopular treaty would anger the majority of the nation's population and lead to mass discontent in the nation. Following this the Confederacy entered what is commonly know as the Rebel Rabbling Years, in which along with dissatisfaction with the establishment and the elite lead to the rise in membership for the Confederate Communist Party. Despite the growth in the Communist Party's membership, the election of 1927 was won by Readjuster B. Carroll Reece.
Despite President Reece's early attempts to unite the nation, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 sent the already divided people into a worst state. As many Confederates across the nation lost their jobs and homes. The communist movement began taking advantage of the people's increasing anger. To concerned with the rise in the Communist membership, which generally had support among African Americans in the South. Dentist Hiram Wesley Evans would form the White nationalist militant organization known as the Knights of the Burning Cross. The KBC would begin attacking Communist rallies across the deep south, along with Black, Catholic, Jewish, and Hispanic neighborhoods and communities.
Assassination of President Long and militia movement[]
In June 1933, Louisiana's governor Huey Long won the Dixiecrat nomination for the presidency. Long made a platform known as Share Our Wealth, which was designed to give benefits to the poor in the South. He would win in a landslide victory in the election of 1933 against the Readjusters' Henry D. Hatfield, a representative of Virginia. Long would begin pushing his liberal policies through the Confederate States Congress as he attempted to lead Dixie out of the Depression. Though many of the communist leadership felt he was not a true friend of the working man, most of their rank and file supported him. Long kept his promises, but made many enemies in the process on both sides of the aisle. These enemies would eventually take action as President Long was assassinated on September 10, 1935. Though the assassin was publicly known as Carl Weiss, the people felt that he was working for conservative members of the Dixiecrats.
Hostilities[]
The nation would enter a period of mourning, but that sadness soon changed to anger as the people began to blame the new administration under President Garner for the death of the “Kingfish”. On September 28, 1935, riots took place across the country as the Confederate Communist Party took up the demand for revenge. The CS was in crisis as labor leader Bill Blizzard of Virginia organized his supporters into the freshly minted Worker's Army. This Militia would begin striking government facilities and personnel across the Appalachian Mountains. As local law enforcement was unable to stop the rebel forces, President Garner ordered the Confederate border patrols and the Virginian, North Carolina, and Tennessee National Guards under the command of Marine General Randolph C. Berkeley to put down Blizzard and his gruella forces.
As the CSA began to focus on Blizzard other minor groups would rise up across the nations including the Everglade revolt in Florida, the citizen revolt of Athens and Etowah, Tennessee which would form the short-lived Republic of Athens. The Black Worker groups lead by Claude Lightfoot in Lake Village, Arkansas and Oliver Law's South Texas Brigade. In Cuba, a group of sergeants began meeting at the Columbia barracks in Havana to form the Columbia Military Union. Their ambition was to decide what the Cuban Militia's stance would be in the case the rebellion would take place in the state, quickly expanded to a plan to create an independent state of Cuba. This group, later called the Junta of the Eight (despite uncertainty about numbers) included Fulgencio Batista and other members of his ABC cell, as well as Pablo Rodríguez, whom some perceived to be the group's leader.
On October 30th, the CMU would remove all senior officers in the Cuban State Militia, before storming the state's capital building arresting many of it's legislation. Batista would decline over the radio that the Cuban National Guard had not recognized the authority of Richmond and that Cuba was now an independent nation. The CMU would have must of the support of the Cuban citizens and the military rank and file. On November 1st, CMU members would enter the governor's palace and remove Governor Céspedes, replacing him with acting president Ramón Grau.
|