15 January 2016

Friday Flag - CSA



The Confederate States of America was founded in 1861 when seven states broke from the United States. War never developed from the break but several more states joined the CSA after the United States outlawed slavery. While there was no open warfare the USA continually led raids to free slaves in border regions and skirmishes resulted.

As the end of the 19th century approached the CSA became an economic backwater. Larger US entities more likely to establish relations with Mexico than with the Confederates. By 1876 Texas was the first state to leave the CSA.

Texas didn't last long as an independent nation. Mexico, with the USA looking the other way, invaded and annexed the territory. The CSA fought a brief war with Mexico as a result but the United States acted as a mediator.

As the 20th century dawned the CSA got involved in a war with Spain which led to coastal settlements in Florida and South Carolina being bombarded and Spain retaining hold over its colonies. Within a decade Cuba and Puerto Rico would become the Caribbean Commonwealth, a semi-autonomous part of the Spanish Empire.

During the Great War the German Empire sent the Zimmerman Telegraph to the Confederate States trying to bring them into the conflict. In no condition to invade the United States the CSA remained neutral.

Florida eventually left the CSA and joined the Caribbean Commonwealth. Virginia, for years economically outpaced by West Virginia, leaves the CSA and asks for re-admittance to the United States in 1927, bringing the CSA back down to 7 states.

While slavery was on a decline over the decades it wasn't until a Constitutional amendment in 1936 did the CSA officially end slavery. They would remain a economic disaster area for decades with the more powerful USA and Mexico dominating and exploiting their economy.

02 January 2016

2015 In Review

Dang, 2015 was a crazy year for me. On the down side it really hampered my posting schedule. I posted less than I did in the short year of 2013 when I started this blog. Still I plan on keeping things going. Despite the limited new posts in 2015 some were pretty good. Here is a list of the year's top posts.

Top five posts from 2015:
#1: Map of he United States of America circa 1910 - One of my better attempts at creating a nice looking map.
#2: Friday Flag - Liberia
#3: Friday Flag - Triple Monarchy
#4: Money Monday #5 - 100 Mark Note - one of the better alternate currencies I've designed.
#5: Book Review - The Multiversity Guidebook - I really need to do more book and movie reviews.

What's Up for 2016
The big thing for this year will be the GURPS RPG campaign I plan to run in the summer. It will take place entirely in an alternate history. The game will allow me to develop a number of new and interesting nations and explore in detail an interesting new world.

Over the Christmas/New Year period I begin focusing on learning the rules of Crusader Kings 2. I've finally got a dynasty going and might post some details and screenshots as it develops.

There is a large stack of alternate history books I've read that need reviews. I've also got a stack of unread ones that need reading. I'll try to share my thoughts and insights on these books as the year progresses.

01 January 2016

Friday Flag - Seljuk Empire



Happy New Year to everyone! It's Friday, time for a new alternate history flag.

Today I present the flag of the Seljuk Empire. In our timeline the Sultanate of Rum collapsed in the early 14th century eventually leading to the Ottoman Empire being formed.

In this alternate the Seljuq Dynasty (founded in the 10th century) continued to dominate Anatolia. The ongoing conflicts with the Roman Empire (historiographically known as the Byzantine Empire) helped the Seljuk maintain control over the other Turkish lines. They would led the eventual conquest of Constantinople in 1444 allowing them to solidify their own reorganized empire.

As this history continues it the Seljuk Empire would likely develop along similar lines as the OTL Ottoman Empire did. Its survival would depend on the numerous small changes over the centuries leading up to the Great War.


The central symbol on this flag was taken from a file uploaded by Mevlüt Kılıç to Wikipedia. Therefore this image is also covered by the Creative Commons ShareAlike attribution.

Creative Commons License
Seljuk Empire flag by Sean Sherman, based on work of Mevlüt Kılıç is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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