| Welcome to Alternate History Lounge. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Forced conscription in Featherston's war | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 28 2007, 03:40 AM (247 Views) | |
| RojoDiablo13 | Dec 28 2007, 03:40 AM Post #1 |
|
Serf
![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Hey, y'all. I was on the old board, rather infrequently. Have a question about the last days of the TL-191 Second World War. CSA troops were so thin on the ground, they were conscripting the "nephews" who were made guards at Camp Determination instead of having to serve. Now, first of all, I can't feel sorry for them as Party members and camp guards. But I'm wondering: who's more wrong in this? Them for whining about being ordered to the front, and trying to desert, and playing the "Do you know whose nephew I am?" card? Or the government for breaching the agreements they'd had? Not that those agreements would have been legally binding or anything, but if they were taking guys out of the camps, they were probably rounding them up from essential industry, too. Instead of conceding, they damaged the infrastructure for no purpose except more cannon fodder. I'm not sure. I do know that if you're going to swear allegiance to a group like the Freedom Party, you should be willing to prove that allegiance. Featherston was a good soldier, and not afraid to go to the front at the height of the conflict. His followers should do nothing less, if asked. OTOH, I wonder how nepotism came into play in the Party, when that's just what pushed Featherston over the edge. Did he think it was okay for someone to get favoritism if they'd earned it in service of the Party? Even so, what would happen in the next generation? If the CSA had won and the Party survived, eventually there would have been the Party equivalent of Jeb Stuart III: someone you didn't dare touch because of who his daddy and granddaddy were. |
![]() |
|
| Makkabee | Dec 28 2007, 02:01 PM Post #2 |
|
Count
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It's no surprise that nepotism started up again immediately in a despotic regime like Featherston set up. It's also worth noting that the rich kids and the connected kids went into service in great numbers in WWI but we didn't hear much of the same in Dixie in WWII. When the Party makes itself a new aristocracy it develops the weaknesses of aristocracy -- people think more of their class and their family and their personal fiefdoms than they do of the nation as a whole. Stretch it long enough and it also means incompetents rise to power on family connections. Cicero's De Republica, still one of the best primers for political theory in my opinion, even if I disagree with a lot of its conclusions, talks about this, if somewhat briefly. Yeah, those guys had a duty to their country (they weren't conscientious objectors, just out to save their own skins), and their government had a duty to keep its promises to them. Given how bad the whole stinking Cause was, I'm not sorry to see them tear each other apart. As for the robbing Peter to pay Paul problem of drafting workers in key industries, the argument boiled down to "if we lose the war today, tomorrow we won't be able to use the stuff those workers would have made." Shortsighted? Yes. But the only way to realistically take the long view by then was to accept defeat and do what you could to arrange for recovery afterwards. Featherston and his crowd weren't capable of that. He'd rather die than lose, and he'd MUCH rather everybody else went with him. If not nuking Philadelphia meant a smaller CSA would preserve its independence after the Freedom Party leaders were executed, Jake would have nuked Philly anyway. "After me, the deluge." |
![]() |
|
| « Previous Topic · Alternate History Media · Next Topic » |





![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)



9:16 AM Jul 11