The Great War: American Front

Last updated
The Great War: American Front
TheGreatWarAmericanFront.jpg
First edition
Author Harry Turtledove
Cover artist George Pratt
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Series Great War
Genre Alternate history novel
Publisher Del Rey
Publication date
May 12, 1998
Media typePrint (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages562
ISBN 0-345-40615-X
OCLC 38081533
813/.54 21
LC Class PS3570.U76 G74 1998
Preceded by How Few Remain  
Followed by The Great War: Walk in Hell  

The Great War: American Front is the first alternate history novel in the Great War trilogy by Harry Turtledove. [1] It is the second part of Turtledove's Southern Victory series of novels. It takes the Southern Victory Series from 1914 to 1915. [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Plot summary

After a prologue with Robert E. Lee smashing the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania due to him not losing Special Order 191, in October 1862, and the subsequent Anglo-French diplomatic recognition of the Confederate States of America. The embittered Abraham Lincoln tells British Ambassador Richard Lyons that the United States would eventually get even by finding a European ally to match both the United Kingdom and France; the Ambassador laughs scornfully, but Lincoln's prophecy comes true when by 1914 the US would be the firm ally of Imperial Germany.

In the larger Southern Victory Series context, the CSA and the USA remained hostile powers toward one another during the decades between 1862 and 1914. A second military defeat of the USA by the CSA in the Second Mexican War (1881–1882) greatly intensified the resentment and hatred of the Confederate States in the USA, where Remembrance Day becomes a grim official holiday marking the 1882 surrender and keeping alive the dream of revenge for the two humiliations inflicted by the South.

The novel's main plot begins on June 28, 1914, the same day Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg of Austria-Hungary, are assassinated in Sarajevo by Nedeljko Čabrinović with a bomb thrown into their car and explodes (as opposed to Gavrilo Princip with a gun in our timeline), with the incident drawing the European powers into a whirlwind of war. At the eruption of an alternate World War I known as the Great War, the USA and CSA find themselves on opposite sides of the divide between the Central Powers and the Entente Powers, respectively. The fighting in Europe quickly spreads to North America, where the pro-German United States under President Theodore Roosevelt and 75-year-old General George Armstrong Custer declare war on President Woodrow Wilson's CSA, which are allied with the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. After the Confederate seizure of Washington, D.C., and invasion into Pennsylvania, and initial US invasions of Kentucky, Canada, and western Virginia, the conflict bogs down into trench warfare.

By the end of novel, in the autumn of 1915, the Confederates have been slowly driven out of Pennsylvania and back into Maryland, while poison gas assists the U.S. Army's slow advance through Kentucky. Across the Mississippi River, in the western part of the continent, the conflict is a war of movement, with the U.S. pushing deep into Sequoyah (our world's Oklahoma) and Confederate-owned Sonora. In the wider world the war has gone much the same as in actual history but the U.S has successfully conquered the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) from Britain, and Argentina has joined the Entente and is fighting Central-Powers' allied Chile.

In Canada, British and Canadian forces are slowly driven back to Guelph, Ontario and U.S. soldiers successfully establish a foothold on the north bank of the St Lawrence river. Winnipeg remains in Canadian hands, enabling Canada to remain in the war.

The novel ends with the beginning of a Marxist rebellion of African-Americans against the war-distracted government of the CSA.

Most of the characters in the book are everyday people caught up in the bigger world of a global war. One main character in the book who goes on to play a major role in the series is a Confederate artillery sergeant named Jake Featherston.

This book is followed by The Great War: Walk in Hell , and then The Great War: Breakthroughs .

Similar works

The idea that in 1914 Theodore Roosevelt is President of the Union while Woodrow Wilson is President of the Confederacy also came up in MacKinlay Kantor's If the South Had Won the Civil War , published in magazine form in 1960 and book form in 1961. In an introduction to a reprint of that volume, Turtledove said that idea was too good not to use in his own series (in Kantor's version, the USA and CSA are allies in both World Wars, fighting together against Germany and finally reuniting in 1961).

Three decades earlier, the short fiction "If Robert E. Lee Had NOT Won the Battle of Gettysburg" by Winston Churchill, published in If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931), had used the same idea.

Reception

SF Site gave the book a mixed review, stating that "there are simply too many characters in too many different theatres of war and far too much jump-cutting between them" but "Despite my criticisms, in the end I came away from American Front with a deeper appreciation for the world I really live in". [5] Kirkus were also critical in their review, calling the book a "A workmanlike yarn whose connection to reality, insecure at the outset, grows more tenuous with every turning page". [6] Publishers Weekly were more praising in their review, calling it "state-of-the-art alternate history, nothing less" and giving the book a star review. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alternate history</span> Genre of speculative fiction, where one or more historical events occur differently

Alternate history is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which one or more historical events have occurred but are resolved differently than in actual history. As conjecture based upon historical fact, alternate history stories propose What if? scenarios about crucial events in human history, and present outcomes very different from the historical record. Some alternate histories are considered a subgenre of science fiction, or historical fiction.

Quadruple Alliance may refer to:

<i>How Few Remain</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

How Few Remain is a 1997 alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is the first part of the Southern Victory saga, which depicts a world in which the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It is similar to his earlier novel The Guns of the South, but unlike the latter, it is a purely historical novel with no fantastical or science fiction elements. The book received the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 1997, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1998. It covers the Southern Victory Series period of history from 1862 and from 1881 to 1882.

<i>The Guns of the South</i> 1992 novel by Harry Turtledove

The Guns of the South is an alternate history novel set during the American Civil War by Harry Turtledove. It was released in the United States on September 22, 1992.

<i>Settling Accounts: Drive to the East</i> 2005 book by Harry Turtledove

Drive to the East is the second book in Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels.

<i>Settling Accounts: Return Engagement</i> 2004 book by Harry Turtledove

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement is the first book of Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts series of alternate history novels.

The Southern Victory series or Timeline-191 is a series of eleven alternate history novels by author Harry Turtledove, beginning with How Few Remain (1997) and published over a decade. The period addressed in the series begins during the Civil War and spans nine decades, up to the mid-1940s. In the series, the Confederate States defeats the United States of America in 1862, therefore making good its attempt at secession and becoming an independent nation. Subsequent books are built on imagining events based on this alternate timeline.

<i>Bring the Jubilee</i> 1953 book by Ward Moore

Bring the Jubilee is a 1953 novel of alternate history by American writer Ward Moore.

<i>American Empire: Blood and Iron</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

American Empire: Blood and Iron is the first book of the American Empire trilogy of alternate history fiction novels by Harry Turtledove. It is a sequel to the novel How Few Remain and the Great War trilogy, and is part of the Southern Victory series.

<i>American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold is the second book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove. It takes place during the period of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. During this era in Turtledove's Southern Victory world, the Confederate States of America, stretching from Sonora to Virginia, is led by Whigs while the United States of America is controlled by Socialists.

<i>Settling Accounts: The Grapple</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

Settling Accounts: The Grapple by Harry Turtledove is the third book in the Settling Accounts tetralogy, an alternate history setting of World War II known as the Second Great War in North America. It is part of the Southern Victory, which supposes that the Confederate States of America won the American Civil War. It takes place in the Southern Victory Series Earth in 1943.

<i>The Great War: Breakthroughs</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

The Great War: Breakthroughs is the third and final installment of the Great War trilogy in the Southern Victory series of alternate history novels by Harry Turtledove. It takes the Southern Victory Series to 1917.

<i>Settling Accounts: In at the Death</i> Book by Harry Turtledove

Settling Accounts: In at the Death is the last novel of the Settling Accounts tetralogy that presents an alternate history of World War II known as the Second Great War that was released July 27, 2007. It brings to a conclusion the multi-series compilation by author Harry Turtledove, a series sometimes referred to as Southern Victory. It covers the time period from 1943 to 1945.

<i>The Great War: Walk in Hell</i> 1999 book by Harry Turtledove

The Great War: Walk in Hell is the second book in the Great War series of alternate history books by Harry Turtledove. It is also the third part of the Southern Victory. It takes the Southern Victory Series from 1915 to 1916.

<i>American Empire: The Victorious Opposition</i> 2003 book by Harry Turtledove

American Empire: The Victorious Opposition is the third and final book in the American Empire alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, and the seventh in the Southern Victory series of books.

<i>The Valley-Westside War</i> 2008 young adult alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove

The Valley-Westside War is a 2008 American young adult alternate history novel by Harry Turtledove. It is the sixth and final book in the Crosstime Traffic series.

American Civil War alternate histories are alternate history fiction that focuses on the Civil War ending differently or not occurring. The American Civil War is a popular point of divergence in English-language alternate history fiction. The most common variants detail the victory and survival of the Confederate States. Less common variants include a Union victory under different circumstances from actual history, resulting in a different postwar situation; black American slaves freeing themselves by revolt without waiting for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation; a direct British and/or French intervention in the war; the survival of Lincoln during John Wilkes Booth's assassination attempt; a retelling of historical events with fantasy elements inserted; the Civil War never breaking out and a peaceful compromise being reached; and secret history tales. The point of divergence in such a story can be a "natural, realistic" event, such as one general making a different decision, or one sentry detecting an enemy invasion unlike in reality. It can also be an "unnatural" fantasy/science fiction plot device such as time travel, which usually takes the form of someone bringing modern weapons or hindsight knowledge into the past. Still another related variant is a scenario of a Civil War that breaks out at a different time from 1861 and under different circumstances.

If the South Had Won the Civil War is a 1961 alternate history book by MacKinlay Kantor, a writer who also wrote several novels about the American Civil War. It was originally published in the November 22, 1960, issue of Look magazine. It generated such a response that it was published in 1961 as a book.

The Confederate States of America (1861–1865) only had one president, who was Jefferson Davis. In various American Civil War alternate histories where the Confederacy won the American Civil War and continued its existence, various people have served in the office of the presidency of the Confederacy.

References

  1. "Uchronia: Great War Multi-Series (Southern Victory)". www.uchronia.net.
  2. Webb, Jim (June 1998). "BOOK REVIEWS The Great War: American Front". Bookpage. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  3. Shainblum, Mark. "The Great War: American Front Review". SF Site. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  4. "The Great War: American Front Review". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  5. Shainblum, Mark. "The Great War: American Front". SF Site. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  6. "The Great War: American Front". Kirkus. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  7. "Great War: American Front". Publishers Weekly. 4 May 1998. Retrieved 20 May 2020.