I played the Southern Victory mod for HOI4 and in it, if the CSA wins the Second World War it divides the US into military occupation zones. Fairly uninspired but it isn’t clear - from memory - what else they have to play with based on the source material.
Featherston keeps saying the CSA will “lick the Damnyankees” so can we assume a Versailles-esque peace? Would he allow the USA to even carrying o existing?
Unlike his OTL analogue, he didn’t want Lebensraum, though maybe some states would see territory transfers into the CSA and their populations East Prussia’d as a means of making a buffer.
I can’t recall if HT goes into much more detail in the books. But with what we know, and using either realism or what the fevered mind of Sarge would want, what might Jake Featherston’s post-war North America look like? Assume for the sake of argument that the CSA wins the Battle of Pittsburgh and the USA just never rallies to recover.
From what I recall when reading the first Settling Accounts book, right about the time the first Ohio offensive ends, Featherston makes a speech offering peace in exchange for the last bits of CSA territory taken after GW1 (Sequoyah, NW Sonora, NE Arkansas, and Northern Virginia), full repayment of all reparations the USA demanded at the end of that war ($2 billion, I think, in gold, oil or steel), a completely disarmed border zone extending up to 100 miles (excepting D.C., out of "mutual respect" for Washington), and the CSA sending regular inspection tours to ensure disarmament (no USA inspections allowed). After Smith says no John Paul Jones-style, Featherston bets everything on the Pittsburgh offensive (Operation Coalscuttle), and the rest is (alternate) history, according to the following books.
If we consider the potential/wildest effects of a successful Coalscuttle (the capture of Pittsburgh,
maybe followed by further assaults into eastern PA, threatening and
perhaps even getting close to/taking Philly as in the WofS, leading to Smith being killed or ousted and LaFollette suing for peace, or their replacements doing so if they both refuse/are killed), then I think Featherston might make the same first offer, with several major addendums possible:
-Even more reparations (maybe to the point of all the territory taken in Ohio and PA being made an economic satellite, a la the
Occupation of the Ruhr)
-Surrender of high-ranking military and civilian figures (predominantly Socialists in the latter category, given CSA attitudes) for trial on (hypocritical) charges of war crimes for "provoking" the CSA to launch the conflict.
-Perhaps cession of southern IL, IN, and OH along the Ohio River, as a "buffer against future aggression", with a DMZ stretching through the rest, and extended beyond 100 miles everywhere else along the US-CS border.
-Recognition of CSA conquest of (or at least strong influence over) Haiti and the Bahamas, effectively realizing the "Golden Circle" ambition (and extending the Southern Holocaust, something probably long sought by the CSA in the case of Haiti)
-
Maybe recognition of the "Republic of Deseret", though unless Featherston demands Arizona, too, I don't see this happening/being sustainable, since the Mormon state would still be surrounded by the U.S. otherwise. Of course, he could just demand it as a means of further humiliating the U.S. and trying to keep further trouble boiling in its interior.
-
Maybe Canadian independence, but I have doubts here, too; the appeal of the pre-GW1 encirclement aside, having large numbers of U.S. troops tied down up north would have been crucial in a Confederate GW2 victory, so Featherston might not demand this so as to keep them from Confederate borders (although gunrunning to Canadian rebels obviously wouldn't stop).
-Massive reductions in U.S. forces generally, with frequent inspections to ensure compliance.
Bottom line: I seriously doubt Featherston would push a breakup/occupation of the U.S. like you describe in the mod; even
he concedes (IIRC) that the CSA doesn't have the manpower to do so, hence the blitzkrieg in Blackbeard and Coalscuttle. I think he just wanted the CSA (himself, in other words) "on top" in North America, which would basically mean supplanting the U.S. as the premier continental power and keeping it in a permanent weakened state, with or without territorial concessions or anything like the terms I listed. With that achieved, he'd also pursue the Southern Holocaust just as if not more aggressively, perhaps even trying to force it on blacks in the U.S. (which might be made easier given a defeated U.S.'s need for scapegoats, alongside those it made out of the Socialists for losing the war) and on other black populations in the Western Hemisphere.
Where can this mod be found? Can it be played through other factions?
