Literature / Cinco de Mayo

The swift French victory in Mexico in 1862 marked a fundamental shift in the world order. Even more so than the upheavals of '48 and the victory in Crimea, it served as a signal that the balance of power not just in Europe but around the globe that had persisted since the Holy Alliance imposed the terms of the Congress of Vienna was coming to an end. This earthquake in world affairs - a robust French Empire that had learned the lessons of the first Napoleon and a Europe once again invested in the matters of the New World - would presage the dramatic changes that would follow but a half century later.

’’Cinco de Mayo’’ is a timeline from AlternateHistory.com written by KingSweden24.

In OTL, the Battle of Puebla was a major turning point in the Second French intervention in Mexico in 1862 with the French Army under Charles de Lorencez repulsed from the city by Ignacio Zaragoza of the Mexican Republican forces and helped boost their morale with the battle going down in the history books as Cinco de Mayo, a holiday celebrated by Mexican-Americans in the United States (but less so in it’s native land of Mexico, ironically enough).

However in TTL, things don’t go as planned for the Mexican Republicans as their commander is injured allowing de Lorencez to take Puebla and crush the opposition solidifying not just the re-establishment of France’s presence in the New World since the days of Napoléon Bonaparte but the creation of the Second Mexican Empire under Maximillian I much sooner. The after-effects of a French victory in Puebla spread over to The American Civil War where the Confederate States of America scored big victories in Maryland, Kentucky and Pennsylvania by Braxton Bragg and Robert E. Lee respectively leading to the recognition of the new nation by Mexico, France and the United Kingdom with the United States of America forced to sign a peace treaty ending the conflict in 1863. The victories of France and the Confederate States soon lead to a very different world.

The timeline can be read here. Additionally, the timeline’s creator has created an Expanded Universe thread ‘’Into the Cincoverse - The Cinco de Mayo EU Thread and Wikibox Repository’’ to cover future developments. A sequel thread appropriately titled ‘’Sequel de Mayo’’ can also be read here.

Cinco de Tropes:

• Adapted Out:
  • With World War I as we know it butterflied, Fascism and Nazism never exist in the Cincoverse along with other brutal totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
  • Due to Harland Sanders staying in Indiana and serving in not just the United States Army during the Great American War but as Senator, he never established Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Kentucky town of Corbin.
  • D. W. Griffith still made ‘’The Birth of a Nation (1915)’’ but due to the Confederacy’s defeat in the Great American War, he didn’t co-found United Artists or direct ‘’Intolerance’’ as his next movie.
• The Alliance:
  • The Nine-Nation Alliance was formed to counter the anti-foreign Boxer rebels in the Boxer Rebellion comprised of nine nations as its name suggests specifically Britain, Russia, France, Japan, Germany, the United States, Italy, Austria-Hungary and Spain (who remained neutral IOTL).
  • Bloc Sud serves as one for the Confederacy and its allies in Latin America (specifically Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay) for the purpose of being a buffer against American influence.
  • The United States also forms its own alliance known simply as the Axis with Argentina, Peru and Bolivia to counter Bloc Sud.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • The Battle of Campbellsville is a decisive engagement in Kentucky between Don Carlos Buell of the Union and Braxton Bragg of the Confederacy similar to the Battle of Perryville IOTL. Only here, it’s the Confederates that won and solidified their presence in Kentucky instead of the Union retaining control of the state. Similarly, the Battle of Small Mountain parallels OTL’s Battle of South Mountain in being an engagement involving Ambrose Burnside, George B. McClellan and Robert E. Lee serving as the prelude to a much larger battle (Antietam/Chambersburg) though it ended in a Confederate victory and eventually led Abraham Lincoln to scrap what would have been the Emancipation Proclamation.
  • Both Napoleon III and Lord Palmerston were in favor of France and the United Kingdom respectively intervening on the Confederacy’s behalf under the belief that the Union could not win the Civil War but abandoned this idea after 1863 in the wake of Confederate defeats in Gettysburg and Vicksburg respectively. Here, they get their wish and both recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation.
  • The American purchase of the Russian colony of Alaska is called “Seymour’s Folly” as it happened under the administration of Horatio Seymour much like how the OTL event with William Seward was known as “Seward’s Folly”.
  • The Republican Party abolishes slavery after the Civil War through the 13th and 14th Amendments as well as the Civil Rights Act but this happens after Confederate independence and under Salmon Chase to boot.
  • Much like in our world, Memphis experienced one of the worst incidents of racial violence in North America after the end of the Civil War in 1866 but in the context of a Confederate victory three years earlier under the name Battle of Colliersville otherwise known as the Memphis Massacre and this incident is perpetrated by Nathan Bedford Forrest similar to the Battle of Fort Pillow.
  • The post-war Confederacy experienced an uptick in violence from paramilitary groups and secret societies much like what happened to the OTL post-Civil War South of which the Kuklos Klan (KK) and the Knights of the White Camelia are based on actual Reconstruction terrorist groups.
  • Spain and its colony Cuba experienced a conflict with a white, English-speaking country in North America acting on behalf of Cuban rebels in the Confederate States in what became known as the Cuban War similar to the United States in the Spanish-American War. However, not only does the rebellion fail but the Confederate President at the time, Nathan Bedford Forrest, dies from yellow fever.
  • The Panic of 1873 occurs ITTL as the Panic of 1871 and it’s the main cause of The Great Depression in North America and Europe respectively.
  • As IOTL, Rutgers and Princeton played a game in 1871 that would become incredibly popular in the United States and its rules would be codified under Walter Camp. But this game isn’t American Football but Rugby instead.
  • The author confirms the Confederacy’s Grand Consensus has some elements of Reconstruction with President James Longstreet clamping down on paramilitary violence by the Klan and similar organizations as well as a diplomatic thaw with the United States.
  • A major conflict in China spreads to one of its major cities where invading forces engaged in killing, rape and looting against the local populace with Japan being involved. Only that conflict was the Boxer Rebellion and the event where these atrocities took place was in Peking under the names Battle of Peking and the Rape of Peking (much like the Rape of Nanking).
  • Japan went to war with a European power in Asia though it’s not Russia but Spain instead as part of the Spanish-Japanese War which led to the liberation of the Philippines.
  • According to the author, the assassinations of George Armstrong Custer and John Hay are based on the assassinations of James Garfield and William McKinley respectively.
  • The United States still experiences a set of discriminatory laws and a race riot targeting one group though it’s not directed at African-Americans but Chinese-Americans in the form of Johnny Chinaman and the 1893 San Francisco Race Riot which are based on Jim Crow and the 1921 Tulsa race riots respectively.
  • Nicaragua gets a canal as originally intended IOTL.
  • Spain has a role in Boxer Rebellion though not as a diplomatic mediator IOTL, but one of the combatants here.
  • An Austrian prince in Europe is assassinated by a radical but this prince is not Franz Ferdinand of Austria but his nephew Crown Prince Rudolf instead.
  • The RMS Titanic is still made and was involved in an infamous incident. Only here, the Titanic accidentally rammed into the SS New York and underwent repairs in Belfast to ensure it would not get damaged.
  • Much like in OTL, a military alliance known as the Axis is formed and becomes one of the two sides in a major conflict. But this Axis is comprised of democratic nations in the Americas before and after the Great American War instead of the genocidal, totalitarian powers from Europe and Asia before and after World War II.
  • During the Great American War, Charles Evans Hughes issues War Directive 107 which declares that all slaves within American-occupied Confederate territory are free akin to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and is celebrated by black people in the Confederacy as Directive Day, an analogue to Emancipation Day in some U.S. states and territories. Likewise, slaves freed under the Directive enlist in the U.S. Army as part of the Hellfighter Battalions (essentially TTL’s Harlem Hellfighters) and they are educated under the Organization for Negro Education who are similar in purpose to the Freedmen’s Bureau of OTL.
  • The Corbin Massacre by Captain Harland Sanders during the Great American War took place in Corbin, the Kentucky town where Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken IOTL and even earns him the nickname “Kentucky Fryer” for his actions.
• Balkanize Me:
  • The United States lost the 11 Southern states plus Kentucky, the Indian Territory and half of the Arizona Territory to the now-independent Confederate States after the War of Secession.
  • Quebec and the Maritimes secede from Canada by the 1990s due to resentment at the government in Ottawa from the local populations and religious tensions. In the case of Quebec, it’s confirmed to have its own version of Northern Ireland’s The Troubles between French Catholic and Anglo-Protestant Quebecois respectively complete with death squads.
  • This also happens to the Confederate States itself with Texas successfully declaring its independence in the final years of the Great American War due to the influence of the Texas Party, hostility towards Confederate government-run institutions most notably the Texas Cattlemen’s Association (TCA) and opposition to the war. Similarly, Kentucky was split from the Confederacy and became a black-run nation known as the Free Commonwealth of Kentucky.
  • Inverted with the nations of Central America who reunite once more under the Federation of Centroamerica.
• Bookends: In the Denouement of Cinco de Mayo’s first volume, May 5th is a significant date in world history as it’s where an important battle linked to the fate of the Confederacy happened: the French victory in Puebla and the American victory in Hilton Head.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The Civil War is primarily known as the War of Secession along with the War of Confederate Independence and the War of Southern Independence respectively.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Unsurprisingly given the time period, there is plenty of racial tension and discrimination throughout the world from the second-class status of blacks in the Confederacy to violent race riots and pogroms targeting Catholics, Asians and Jews in North America and Europe respectively. The N-word is even used by some characters (albeit censored).
• Deep South: The Confederate States of America is unsurprisingly this as they are a hierarchical, slaveholding republic with a plantation-heavy economy.
• Different World, Different Movies:
  • "Harrisburg" is the Cincoverse’s equivalent to Gettysburg as a movie focusing on one of the most important if not famous battles in American history, its long running time due to originally being conceived as a miniseries, critical reception and being directed by Ron Maxwell.
  • "The Birth of a Nation (1915)" focuses on the “birth” of the Confederacy during the War of Secession and the leadup to the Great American War through the eyes of several characters from the North and the South respectively as opposed to a full-blown glorification of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction IOTL.
  • The BBC produces a “telefilm” titled "Panthers", a Film Noir version of The Pink Panther starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Jacques Clouseau and set in France specifically the French State. The film became as popular as its OTL counterpart spawning five sequels with Sellers reprising his role between 1964 and 1978, a reboot in the late 90s and early 2000s starring David Suchet and a 2019 eight-episode miniseries with Paddy Considine. It’s very popular in Britain but has a mixed reception in France, the setting of the original film.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • Robert E. Lee lived an extra year due to the earlier end of the Civil War passing away in 1871 due to poor health.
  • Nathan Bedford Forrest succumbed to yellow fever during the Cuban War in 1872.
  • James G. Blaine succumbed to Bright’s disease and other ailments in 1886.
  • Abraham Lincoln passed away peacefully in 1893.
  • Similarly, Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth also died peacefully in 1900.
  • Napoleon IV wasn’t killed in a skirmish with Zulus and succeeded his father as the Emperor of France reigning from 1874 until 1905.
  • Alexander III of Russia isn’t assassinated and dies in 1908.
  • George Armstrong Custer is assassinated in office by David Red Cloud during his second year in the White House.
  • Umberto I of Italy, Duke Philippe of France and President John Hay are all assassinated in the 1890s.
• Double-Blind What-If: Appears from time to time in posts covering TTL’s AlternateHistory.com with what ifs focusing on how events in the Cincoverse might have gone differently such as the Confederacy successfully invading Cuba or the Great American War averted entirely.
• Fantasy Conflict Counterpart: While it is downplayed since the Civil War still exists, the Great American War is based on its OTL counterpart as the conflict involves the United States defeating the Confederate States and abolishing slavery with blacks playing a significant role in the conflict on behalf of the former.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The author has said that the Confederate States in the Cincoverse is modeled after the plantation-heavy caudillo nations of Latin America, Northern Ireland during the Troubles and Apartheid Era South Africa in terms of its economy, society and violent ethnic tensions between white and black Confederates.
  • By a similar count, the Troubles in the former Canadian province of Quebec are also based on the era as well with Anglo Protestants and French Catholics as analogues to Ulster Protestants and Irish Catholics.
  • The Mormons in TTL’s Utah War are explicitly based on the South African Boers as both are European-descended peoples unsuccessfully fighting a war against a larger empire (United States / United Kingdom).
• Fictional Political Party:
  • In the United States, the Liberal Party was founded by former members of the Republican Party as its replacement sharing the same goals and policies. Later, the country sees the emergence of James B. Weaver’s short-lived Populist Party and the Socialist Party.
  • The political landscape of the Confederate States throughout the 1870s-1890s is dominated by the Democratic Party (no relation to the American Democratic Party). Later, the Confederacy saw two nationwide populist movements in the National Farm and Labor Party (NFLP) and the Socialist Party respectively while Texas has a regionalist party appropriately named the Texas Party that seeks to represent Texan interests in Richmond becoming the dominant force in the state leading to its eventual secession from the Confederacy during the Great American War.
  • Hawaii in the present day has the native-dominated Democratic People’s Party, the Movement for Hawaiian Democracy, the populist-nativist party Hawaii First and the pro-Japanese People’s Rally for Hawaii with the latter two being part of the coalition ‘’Hawaii Hou’’ (Hawaiian Renewal).
• Fictional Province: North Dakota and South Dakota do not exist as they are replaced by the state of Dakota upon its admission.
• For Want Of A Nail: Ignacio Zaragosa getting wounded at the Battle of Puebla has ripple effects extending to world history throughout the 19th and 20th centuries:
  • With the Mexican Republican forces crushed, France has a firm presence in the New World and can diplomatically recognize the Confederacy without the need to ask Britain in a meeting between Minister of State Count Waleski, Juan Almonte and Juan Hidalgo of Mexico and Confederate diplomat John Slidell on September 9, 1862.
  • Likewise, Special Order 191 wasn’t accidentally abandoned and recovered by George B. McClellan, leaving the Army of the Potomac in the dark about the plans of Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Because of this, the battles of South Mountain and Antietam never occurred as they were replaced by Small Mountain and Chambersburg respectively as did Campbellsville for Perryville.
  • As a result of the French victory in Puebla, Maximilian I wasn’t executed in 1867 and became the leading monarch of the Second Mexican Empire well into the early 20th century. This also extends to France itself as Napoleon III is not deposed after the Franco-Prussian War due to the conflict being far less decisive than IOTL and the influence of General Francois Bazaine.
  • With the United States losing TTL’s Civil War, Abraham Lincoln decided not to pursue a second term in 1864 as the Republican Party did not have a good reputation among most American citizens although they were able to get his Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase elected in 1869 who would abolish slavery in the country through the Civil Rights Act and the 13th and 14th Amendments otherwise known as the Abolition Amendments.
  • Prince Alfred was assassinated by an Irish nationalist in the Australian city of Sydney in 1868 which caused a massive upsurge in Hibernophobia across the British Empire including the spread of the Orange Order in North America and Britain treating Ireland much more harshly leading to the Irish Civil War in 1914 between Nationalists and Unionists with the killing of British officer Hubert Gough as the impetus for the entire conflict.
  • Related to the above, the Orange Order was more widespread in North America, particularly Canada which had plenty of anti-Catholic and nativist sentiments leading to the majority of Ukrainian-Canadian immigrants going to the United States instead due to their Orthodox faith and especially a member of the Order killing Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in 1907 which was a major contributing factor to the independence of Quebec and the Maritimes respectively along with Newfoundland and Labrador remaining as its own nation.
  • As France was much stronger here, Germany took Luxembourg instead of Alsace-Lorraine.
  • The Republicans would disappear from American politics and collapse thanks to the Great Depression and a series of scandals involving Salmon Chase. With the Republicans gone, its former members found the Liberal Party to carry on its legacy.
  • The Second Reform Act was defeated in Parliament which ended the political career of Benjamin Disraeli preventing him from becoming Prime Minister.
  • The Hohenzollerns come to power in Spain through Leopold becoming King at the behest of Wilhelm I and Otto von Bismarck. Under Leopold, Spain experienced a golden age with the Carlists and the Confederates defeated thus ensuring they didn’t lose their remaining colonies in the New World (Cuba, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo), a booming economy, stable politics and improved relations with former New World colonies along with its successful intervention in the Boxer Rebellion on behalf of the United States, European empires and Japan under the Nine-Nation Alliance apart from the country’s disastrous defeat in the Spanish-Japanese War against Japan and the loss of the Philippines.
  • Rather than American Football, Rugby is the game played between Princeton and Rutgers in 1871 popularizing the sport in the United States and beyond leading to the formation of the Pro Rugby Association (PRA) which the author describes as an analogue to the National Football League (NFL). Conversely, Basketball never becomes as widespread as OTL remaining a regional sport popular only in the northeastern United States and Canada respectively with volleyball taking its place.
  • With the Second French Empire still existing, Napoleon IV took control after his father died in 1874. Under his rule, France secured the Suez Canal, supported the Ottoman Empire, expanded the country’s presence in Asia through the acquisition of Hainan and Taiwan from China as well as turning Korea into a protectorate (preventing it’s eventual annexation by Japan) and colonized northwestern Africa.
  • Hawaii became a protectorate of Britain to counter American expansionism in the Pacific Ocean ensuring that the monarchy wasn’t overthrown in 1898.
  • Russia would launch another conflict Ottoman Empire in 1877 known as the Russo-Turkish War only to lose again as they did in The Crimean War, dissuading them from pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in Europe butterflying their friendly relationship with Serbia as it’s recognized by the Ottomans along with Montenegro and Romania respectively. Instead, Russia turned its attention to Asia specifically China and Persia respectively before luring Korea away from French influence.
  • The Ottoman victory in the Russo-Turkish War meant that Cyprus and Tunisia were not colonized by France and Britain and neither was Egypt which remains under Ottoman control.
  • Britain tried to conquer the Bantu kingdoms and Boer republics of South Africa in the Basuto War but ended in disaster as they took only Natal and the Cape while the rest of South Africa remained independent.
  • Wilhelm I was successfully assassinated in 1877 by Dr. Karl Nobiling while his grandson Crown Prince Wilhelm II drowned three years later leading to Heinrich III taking the throne.
  • In contrast to Wilhelm I, Alexander III survives his OTL assassination in 1881.
  • With France having an icier relationship with the United States, the Statue of Liberty is not built in New York City with the Liberty Beacon taking its place ITTL.
  • As a result of the Battle of Peking during the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing dynasty was overthrown and replaced by the Republic of China much sooner.
  • Cambodia is controlled by Germany instead of France. Likewise, Madagascar is under Britain to compensate for its loss in the Basuto War.
  • The planned transcontinental canal was built in Nicaragua as opposed to Panama.
  • New Zealand joins Australia as they’re allowed to keep its universal franchise instead of becoming its own nation.
  • Brazil retains its monarchy well into the 20th century with the Proclamation of the Republic being entirely averted. However, Brazil will fall into an Integralist dictatorship led by Plinio Salgado.
  • As a result of the different political climate in Europe, World War I never broke out with the Central European War happening instead in 1919 between France, Austro-Hungary, Denmark, Italy and Germany with Britain, Russia and the Ottoman Empire remaining neutral.
• Futureshadowing: The main thread and ‘’Into the Cincoverse’’ contain information outlining what the present day is like in the timeline. Some of the information from the posts of both threads include:
  • The Confederate States still exists as an independent country in the 21st century.
  • Japan annexes Taiwan (aka Formosa).
  • Huey Long will become President of the Confederate States after the Great American War as a Juan Peron figure.
  • Texas will secede from the Confederate States and become an independent republic again.
  • France became a military dictatorship led by General Raoul Salan lasting from 1938 until 1993 and engaged in brutal warfare against the inhabitants of Algeria.
  • Brazil will turn to the authoritarian Catholic ideology of Integralism and become a one-party state under Plinio Salgado.
  • A financial crisis occurred in Asia in 2002 followed by a set of revolutions known as the Asian Spring ten years later.
  • Robert Redford went into politics and became the next President of the United States as part of a speech commemorating the victims of the 1893 San Francisco Race Riots.
  • The town of Lawrence, Massachusetts and the entire Merrimack Valley become the center of the Information Revolution from the 1970s to the 2000s with Massachusetts and New Hampshire as the home of TTL’s Silicon Valley instead of California.
  • Quebec left Canada in 1991 and signed a treaty with the United States known as the Quebec-United States Energy and Trade Agreement (QUSETA) to provide clean, efficient energy between the two countries.
  • Major League Baseball (MLB) exists including many of its teams such as the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs though they merge with the Pacific Coast League (PCL) at some point while the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers remain in New York City with the New York Yankees as did the Kansas City Athletics and Milwaukee Braves.
  • Italy will remain a monarchy without the rise of fascism or World War II.
  • The Austro-Hungarian Empire will collapse with the formation of successor states such as Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Austria.
  • Hawaii underwent a political revolution in 1954 that overthrew the Anglo-Canadian oligarchy in favor of native rule and became the hub of trade, communications and finance in the Pacific Ocean as well as closer ties with Japan and the United States under the Democratic People’s Party, particularly under Prime Minister Daniel Akaka.
  • After Charles Evans Hughes defeats William Randolph Hearst in the 1912 election, a movement to abolish the Electoral College arises in the United States and succeeds in its goal.
  • The premier rugby league of the United States is the Pro Rugby Association.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In-Universe. An MLB-related post on the EU Thread indicates that baseball became much more popular in China and Brazil than IOTL due to foreign influence with the presence of Chinese and Brazilian players on MLB teams.
• History Repeats:
  • France intervened in the War of Secession (TTL’s Civil War) on behalf of the Confederacy just as they did with the United States in the American Revolution.
  • Texas was an important part of the Confederacy yet they decided to leave and become an independent nation over various issues with the government in Richmond much like what happened before with Mexico.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • Nathan Bedford Forrest didn’t embrace reconciliation with blacks during Reconstruction due to the Confederacy winning its independence. Instead, he became the next Confederate President after Jefferson Davis who used the Kuklos Klan to intimidate political opponents and run corrupt schemes.
  • Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, here became an infamous American war criminal responsible for the Corbin Massacre during the Great American War and he’s unapologetic about committing this atrocity.
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite the Cincoverse diverging from real world history beginning in 1862, many OTL people still exist although some have the same roles as well while others took different paths.
  • Similarly, most modern media companies exist as evidenced by the mentions of NBC and HBO.
  • Both AlternateHistory.com and Wikipedia were still created.
  • Despite Harland Sanders becoming a United States Senator from Indiana, he still dies in 1980.
  • Despite the Pro Rugby Association replacing the National Football League, some of the teams are based on those from the NFL such as the San Francisco 49ers or the Cleveland Rams.
• Irony: The Confederate States of America seceded from the Union in 1861 and won its independence in the War of Secession. And yet Texas, one of the first states to join the Confederate States, decide to secede from it because of widespread dissatisfaction with the government during the Great American War.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople):
  • Tulsa, Oklahoma, El Paso, Texas and Paso del Norte, Mexico are known as Tulasah and Los Pasos respectively due to the Confederate States winning their independence and absorbing more territory.
  • Inverted with Kaliningrad which remains under German control and is still known as Konigsberg.
• The Klan: Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Kuklos Klan is very much this as they are a band of paramilitary ruffians and thugs whose goal is to intimidate political opponents and provide protection for their preferred candidates including Forrest himself in the post-War of Secession years of the Confederacy. Even after the Klan’s disbanding, paramilitary groups never truly go away in the Confederacy as new ones emerge during and after the Great American War such as Benjamin Tillman’s Pitchforkers and the second iteration of the Red Scarves from James K. Vardaman.
• The Migration:
  • Southern Unionists from Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Arkansas end up moving to the United States to settle the western frontier due to resisting the Confederacy.
  • By a similar margin, Confederate slaves emigrate to America, Canada or Mexico in search of a better life.
  • Conversely, the Confederacy receives slave-owning emigrants from Cuba and Brazil who want to keep their slaves amidst the abolition occurring in both countries.
• Military Coup:
  • Attempted with the Waldersee Putsch in Germany led by Alfred von Waldersee but ended in failure as much of the royalty and military supported Friedrich III.
  • A more successful one happened to France when the government was overthrown by General Raoul Salan.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Downplayed. The author has confirmed that there won’t be any totalitarian regimes based on Nazi Germany anytime soon due to butterflies. However, the ideology of Integralism fulfills a similar niche to Nazism and Fascism respectively as a largely totalitarian ideology originating from Europe.
• Only in Florida: Florida is the least populous of all the states in the Confederacy yet it became the entertainment capital of the entire country nicknamed Dixiewood when D.W. Griffith established a studio complex in the city of Jacksonville due to its warm and balmy climate^note IOTL, Jacksonville was the filmmaking capital of the United States until the movie studios and directors moved to Los Angeles.
• Our Presidents Are Different: Very much present in both American and Confederate flavors ranging from President Iron to President Corrupt:
  • On the American side, the Presidents that succeeded Abraham Lincoln (R-IL, 1861-1865) include Horatio Seymour (D-NY, 1865-1869), Salmon Chase (R-OH, 1869-1873), John T. Hoffman (D-NY, 1873-1877), Thomas A. Hendricks (D-IN, 1877-1881), James G. Blaine (L-ME, 1881-1887), John James Ingalls (L-KS, 1887-1889), George Armstrong Custer (D-MI, 1889-1890), David B. Hill (D-NY, 1890-1893), John Hay (L-IN, 1893-1898), Joseph B. Foraker (L-OH, 1898-1905), William Randolph Hearst (D-NY, 1905-1913) and Charles Evans Hughes (L-NY, 1913-).
  • On the Confederate side, the list of Presidents after Jefferson Davis (I-MS, 1861-1868) is comprised of Nathan Bedford Forrest (KK-TN, 1868-1872), John C. Breckinridge (KK-KY, 1872-1874), Isham G. Harris (KK-TN, 1874-1880), James Longstreet (D/CD-VA, 1880-1886), Lucius Q.C. Lamar (D/CD-MS, 1886–1892), John T. Morgan (D/CD-1892-1898), Fitzhugh Lee (D/CD-VA, 1898-1904), Thomas G. Jones (D/CD-AL, 1904-1910), Joseph F. Johnston (D-AL, 1910-1913) and Ellison “Cotton Ed” Smith (D-SC, 1913-).
• Peace Conference:
  • The Congress of Havana functions as one for the end of TTL’s Civil War with France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the Confederate States, the United States and Russia negotiating a set of terms that became part of the Treaty of Havana which recognized Confederate independence and their claims on Kentucky, the Indian Territory and the Arizona Territory in exchange for the Americans to keep Missouri and West Virginia as well as a 40-year concession on the city of New Orleans and unfettered trade on the Mississippi River all of which were ironed out in the eponymous Spanish Cuban city in 1863. Eventually, the Congress and the Treaty were no longer effective on both sides of the Ohio after its expiration coupled with the rejection of the Bliss-Blackburn Treaty in 1909 and the failure of the Niagara Conference leading to the Great American War in 1913.
  • The Berlin Conference otherwise known as the Congress of Berlin was held by Germany in the country’s capital and involved the likes of Germany itself, Russia, Britain, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary in bringing an end to the Russo-Turkish War resulting in the Ottoman recognition of Serbia, Montenegro and Romania as independent countries and Russia withdrawing from European affairs entirely to focus on Asia instead.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn:
  • The Boxer Rebellion’s Battle of Peking between the Nine-Nation Alliance and the Boxer-aligned Qing Dynasty quickly devolves into mass killings, rape, looting and the burning of Peking.
  • The same also happens with the United States Army in Corbin, Kentucky with members of an all-black Hellfighter unit known as Fire Team Five led by Harland Sanders killing 35 people in what became known as the Corbin Massace, one of the most infamous atrocities in the Great American War and a scar in Kentucky history. It was so bad that when Sanders died in 1980, Kentucky rejoiced and held events celebrating his death complete with a parade.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman:
  • Both George Armstrong Custer and Nathan Bedford Forrest got themselves involved in politics as the Presidents of their respective countries only to die while in office. Similarly, James Longstreet also becomes President with far more success than Forrest.
  • Theodore Roosevelt became a successful newspaper magnate and the Mayor of New York.
  • William Randolph Hearst decided to pursue a political career and became President of the United States.
  • Woodrow Wilson is a Confederate historian documenting the Great American War.
  • Harland Sanders became not just a US Senator from Indiana but an infamous war criminal responsible for the Corbin Massacre during the Great American War instead of founding Kentucky Fried Chicken.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt served in the United States Navy as Commander during the Great American War.
  • Huey Long is confirmed to become Confederate President by the 1930s.
  • Robert Redford, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer are stated to be US Presidents in the future.
• Scrapbook Story: As with most Alternate History Discussion timelines, the Cincoverse is told through in-universe history books as well as wikiboxes and forum posts from TTL’s Alternate History Discussion.
• Slave Liberation:
  • Ford’s Uprising involved Jed Ford and 500 slaves attacking northern Mississippi and southern Tennessee in one of the largest slave revolts in North American history since Nat Turner’s Rebellion in pre-secession Virginia in 1831. The rebellion would be put down by Nathan Bedford Forrest at Colliersville in the Memphis Massacre, the largest lynching in North American history with Ford and the remaining 480 rebels Shot at Dawn, hanged or stabbed in two days no less.
  • Similar to the Ford’s Uprising example above, the Great Slave Revolt of 1894 was the biggest and most significant slave revolt in Brazil with an estimated band of 4,000 slaves burning plantations and killing 200 slave owners in the port city of Recife as well as entire towns being evacuated. In the end, the revolt was put down with most slaves killed or mutilated but the Brazilian Army’s slow response coupled with the surviving slave owners never being compensated dealt a blow to the peculiar institution in Brazil and provided good PR to abolitionist societies in the country as well as the United States and Europe. The after-effects of the revolt even spread to the Confederacy with many fearing similar violent retaliation from slaves leading to many of the field slaves getting sold away to break up potential networks, more overseers and guardsmen hired by slave owners and freedmen getting lynched.
  • The still-active Underground Railroad had become a widely supported cause in the United States by the early 1900s within many social circles including abolitionist groups such as the Anti-Slavery League and the International Abolitionist Society. The influence of the Railroad even extends to a clique of politicians from the border city of Ohio most notably President Joseph A. Foraker who met Booker T. Washington and Harriet Tubman showing just how far it became popular in the United States.
  • The Confederacy began the process of gradually freeing more and more of its slaves at the turn of the century due to how economically infeasible slavery became although the newly freed slaves don’t have any rights and can be re-enslaved easily while others would emigrate to America, Canada or Mexico.
  • Charles Evans Hughes’ War Directive 107 not only declares all slaves in American-occupied territory to be free but made the abolition of slavery as the main goal of the United States in the Great American War.
• Shout-Out: Redford becoming President of the United States is an explicit reference to Watchmen according to the author.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Harry Turtledove’s Timeline-191, an alternate history timeline that has the Confederacy winning the Civil War and its impact on world politics and culture. However, Cinco de Mayo serves as a foil to Timeline-191 per Word of God in certain key aspects:
  • The Point of Divergence in Timeline-191 is that the Confederates don’t lose Special Order 191 whereas Cinco de Mayo has the French crush the Mexican Republican forces at the Battle of Puebla.
  • In ‘’Timeline-191’’, the United States aligned itself with Germany and the Central Powers in response to the Confederacy allying with Britain and France as part of the Entente. In ‘’Cinco de Mayo’’, the United States did not forge an alliance with Germany and didn’t become hostile to Britain and France.
  • James G. Blaine and James Longstreet became Presidents of their respective countries but they went to war in TL-191 and avoided it in the Cincoverse.
  • The United States in Timeline-191 went to war with the Confederacy 20 years after the end of the Civil War as part of the Second Mexican War with Britain, France, Canada and Mexico intervening on the latter’s behalf in a conflict that lasted for only one year. Cinco de Mayo in contrast has the United States and the Confederate States not go to war until after the expiration of the Treaty of Havana in 1913 which resulted in the Great American War which would last beyond just a single year.
  • Similarly, the United States and the Confederate States joined foreign alliances in both works. But whereas America and the Confederacy were part of the Central Powers and Entente of Europe in TL-191, America and the Confederacy in the Cincoverse went with the Axis and Bloc Sud of Latin America.
  • The Confederacy in TL-191 would expand its territory by purchasing Cuba from Spain and Sonora and Chihuahua from Mexico while in the Cincoverse it didn’t acquire any new territory and its attempt to annex Cuba from Spain ended in failure.
  • In both works, Quebec exists as an independent country separate from Canada respectively but the circumstances are different between the two. In Timeline-191, Quebec was formed as an American puppet state after the rest of Canada was annexed and put under military occupation during the Great War while in the Cincoverse it declared its independence from Canada without a military conflict in the 1990s.
  • Related to the above, the fate of Canada is also different. Canada in Timeline-191 is disbanded after the Great War in 1917 with the implication that the country is gone forever whereas Cincoverse Canada is an independent nation that still exists to this day albeit without Quebec and the Maritimes.
  • Europe in Timeline-191 was thrust into World War I similar to OTL whereas Europe in the Cincoverse never experienced World War I because the Central European War occurred instead.
  • The Confederacy’s fate is the biggest contrast between Timeline-191 and Cinco de Mayo. In the former, the entire Confederacy is reincorporated into the United States after the Second Great War with a Reconstruction-esque program to protect the black population. In the latter, it’s very much made clear in the main timeline and EU Thread that the Confederacy will continue to exist in the present day.
  • The depiction of the post-war Confederacy and falling under the control of a dictator is also another notable contrast. In Timeline-191, the Confederacy became TTL’s equivalent to Nazi Germany under Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party complete with its own version of the Holocaust known as the Population Reduction. The Confederacy of Cinco de Mayo on the other hand is modeled after Latin America’s caudillo states complete with Huey Long (who was assassinated by Featherston in TL-191) as a pastiche of Argentina’s Juan Peron along with elements derived from Apartheid South Africa and Troubles era Northern Ireland particularly in ethnic tensions.
  • The Mormons are engaged in a conflict with the United States in Utah but they end up going in different directions in Timeline-191 and Cinco de Mayo. TL-191’s Mormons continued to fight the government well into the 1940s and were later deported to Hawaii while the Cincoverse Mormons largely moderated and distanced themselves from the fundamentalists along with Utah becoming a state.
  • Baseball and football are drastically changed in both timelines. TL-191 had baseball remain a regional sport in the Northeast and never become popular with most OTL baseball players playing football instead while the inverse is true with the Cincoverse which had baseball become just as popular as it did in OTL while football was replaced by rugby.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: In-Universe, the Confederacy has a few of these to other countries:
  • The Midlands, consisting of Kentucky, central-eastern Tennessee and northern-central Alabama, is one for its British counterpart of the same name as the industrial heartland of the Confederacy.
  • Dixiewood is to Hollywood from the USA as both are located in former Spanish colonies (Florida / California) with warm climates that made their locations (Jacksonville / Los Angeles) favorable to filmmakers and eventually became the entertainment capitals of their countries.
• Underground Railroad: The titular series of routes are still very much active in a surviving Confederacy and assist slaves in escaping the country. Only this time, the Railroad is publicly supported by many Americans including politicians.
• Wham Episode: These tend to show up in the in-universe history books of the timeline to illustrate a big change in the world, especially in relation to OTL:
  • The Early Years of the Gentleman's Game: Rugby in the 19th Century: Rutgers and Princeton played a new game in 1871 that would become popular in America but it’s not football but rugby instead changing the North American sports landscape forever.
  • The sixth post of The Wizard: The Life of Nathan Forrest: Nathan Bedford Forrest dies from yellow fever during the Cuban War in 1872 which not only demoralized the Confederate war effort but led John C. Breckenridge to become the next President of the Confederacy and its eventual defeat in the conflict. Forrest’s early death would later impact Confederate politics with the fall of the Kuklos Klan and the formation of the Democratic Party.
  • The fifth post of The Eastern Question: Russia, disenchanted from its defeat in the Russo-Turkish War, turns away from Europe to focus on Asia instead and European politics were never the same.
  • The Pineapple Kingdom: Hawaii in the 19th Century: Britain officially declared Hawaii under its protection precluding any American efforts to annex the kingdom and limiting its presence in the Pacific Ocean as well as giving Britain another holding in North America.
  • Bound for Bloodshed: The Great American War: The Bliss-Blackburn Treaty, a proposed 1908 treaty between the United States and the Confederate States to resolve issues related to shipping on the Mississippi River, is rejected in the Confederate Senate escalating tensions between the two countries which became very apparent in the failed Niagara Conference three years later and was one of the main causes of the Great American War.
  • The eleventh post of ‘’Alliance Against America: Inside Bloc Sud’’: The Confederacy initiates Plan HHH with a surprise attack on the American state of Maryland with the army and navy taking out local forces in the Battles of the Monocacy and Baltimore Harbour with much of the state falling into Confederate hands followed by the Sack of Washington.
  • ’’Ooooh boy’’, 5.15.15 Denouement. Not only did the Confederate States lose in Nashville and Hilton Head but it’s made very clear that the United States and its South American allies will emerge victorious in the Great American War complete with American soldiers burning their way through southern Virginia, northern Alabama and central Georgia especially the Sack of Atlanta.