Forum:Harry Turtledove vs Christopher Clark

I'm currently reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. The title is meant ironically; he thoroughly rejects the traditional version of events that has the Great Powers swept along by events over which they'd long since lost control to an inevitable conflagration once the Balkan powder keg was detonated. Instead, he traces all the very specific decisions made by each of the concerned parties, what they were thinking when they made those decisions, what unintended consequences went so disastrously wrong.

Now, as we know, the central premise of the early TL-191 books is that, in the early 1880s, the US and CS each conclude a military alliance with a combination of European powers. Thirty-odd years later, those same alliances draw the two in on opposite sides when WWI begins almost exactly as it did in OTL.

Clark reminds his readers, however, that European diplomacy in the period between 1882 (well, he starts in '85) and 1914 was extremely fluid and free-wheeling. For instance, in 1894, when France and Russia signed the alliance around which the rest of the Entente would eventually coalesce, they were motivated not by Germanophobia but Anglophobia. The relationship among Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary gradually cycled through all three possible permutations of two against one. Austria-Hungary's highly decentralized leadership made it something of a wild card in its own right, Italy was notoriously unreliable in any long-term agreement, and even Serbia oscillated back and forth between a pro-Russian and a pro-Austrian orientation for a while.

This is completely incompatible with HT's continuity for the unseen years between HFR and AF. Sure, it's alternate history, but the POD should have done nothing to freeze the ever-shifting state of European affairs in this era. And with that state persisting, I find it extremely hard to imagine that Britain would sacrifice its freedom of movement in Europe for the sake of maintaining an American alliance, and inconceivable that anyone else would do the same.

The situation in North America during this same period is much more static. Anyone wishing to do business there must choose between the US and the CS; nothing worthwhile can be gained by following a path that bypasses both of them, and the two powers will remain diametrically opposed. Had the Confederate government maintained its pre-POD antipathy for the French adventure in Mexico, there might have been one tiny crack in the wall between the two, similar to the brief thaw in Franco-German relations that took place around the turn of the century when both governments opposed the British occupation of Egypt. But we know that didn't happen.

In this situation, the US would seem to have a number of options that it apparently never considered. The Lincoln Administration worked hard to build strong ties with Russia during the war. Why these weren't maintained is something HT never addressed, but there must have been periodic opportunities to rebuild them, and doing so would not have to come at the expense of a close relationship with Germany. On the contrary, given how badly Germany and Russia were able to destabilize one another's security situation, both would likely welcome a disinterested mutual friend who could help them nip any emerging problems in the bud before they escalated. This offers benefits to the US as well: There's the opportunity to rebuild international prestige lost in the WoS and MWII, and even more importantly, if Russia remains well-inclined toward Germany, France can't consummate the closest thing it has to a natural alliance with another European great power. If France can't do that, she's in a precarious position at home, and won't be able to support the CSA with anywhere near the vigor Richmond might have hoped for.

Also, there's the possibility of reaching some sort of accommodation with Britain. This would be difficult given all the bad blood engendered in two wars, and especially given the borderlands that passed from Maine to New Brunswick. However, the potential benefits of the best case scenario are huge: With the northern flank quiet, the War Department can concentrate all its resources on the long-awaited invasion of the CSA when the time comes. There's a symmetry, too: The large army that Britain maintains in Canada can be redeployed elsewhere as needed, and this might put London in the mood to cooperate, especially if it comes at a time when the UK is being pressed elsewhere by, say, Russian expansion in the general direction of India.

The Confederates, it seems to me, are far more constrained. They don't have options so much as they have simple imperatives which they must adhere to. They must stay on good terms with Britain and France; they must do everything in their power to ensure that Britain and France stay on good terms with each other; and, if this becomes impossible and they're forced to choose between the two, they must choose Britain: That quiet northern flank for the US that I'd mentioned is the stuff of Confederate nightmares.

The CSA would of necessity have to support Canada in the event of a US invasion under any circumstances, formal treaty or no; the reverse is not necessarily true. Add to this the fact that Gulf Coast cotton is no longer necessary to drive English industrial expansion as it had been in the 1860s, and Britain can play a very high-handed game indeed. Even bluffing that it's considering detente with the US would cost it nothing and potentially gain it as much as the CSA can afford to offer. That's the sort of thing that made Perfidious Albion legendary, and I can't imagine why they wouldn't play by those rules here.

Not sure what possessed me to write all this. I'm not accusing HT of inconsistencies or anything like that. I guess I just found it an interesting example of how changing historical attitudes can serve to date historical fiction. The whole premise of the first half of the series is based on an interpretation of historical events that predominated scholarly thinking at the time the books were written, but is being largely abandoned slightly less than two decades later.

I wonder how this would look different if HT were writing the series today?