Washington, the political capital that once symbolized America’s independence, had become a border city after the end of the Civil War. Yet, the stubborn United States government insisted on moving its capital back there after the war, as if trying to prove something to the world. By now, the scars of that war had long since faded. Only in the carefully preserved museums of history could one still see traces of its devastation. Originally, those exhibits were meant to inspire shame and determination among the American people, to remind them to work harder and strive for the reunification of the nation. But as time went on, their meaning changed. What had once been a call to unity had become a pillar of the growing anti-war movement. It could not be helped. As a nation built by immigrants from every corner of the world, the people of the United States never truly shared a deep understanding of what “unity” meant. Irish and English immigrants could never see eye to eye. Italians and Frenchmen still carried their old grudges across the ocean. And between white settlers and people of color, discrimination persisted like an unhealed wound… The seeds of division sown in Europe had borne bitter fruit in America. Countless ethnic conflicts became tangled together, leaving the young republic burdened by internal problems that refused to fade. In truth, even in the original timeline, this was the same story. Many later generations would call Americans overly cautious, wondering why a country with such power would choose to stay quiet until after the Second World War. What they failed to realize was that the real United States was never as strong as it appeared. The central government was weak, racial divisions ran deep, and the individual states wielded enormous power. These were the challenges the young republic had to face. Constant infighting drained the nation of its strength. From the 19th century into the early 20th, every United States government struggled to find ways to ease the internal conflict. Only as time passed, as immigrants grew to understand one another better and as interracial marriages became more common, did the divisions among white communities begin to fade. It was only then that the United States truly began to grow strong. In the original timeline, this process of self-integration took over a century. Now, it would take even longer. With the South’s independence, the central government’s authority collapsed completely. Its control over the remaining states grew weaker with each passing year. In a nation of immigrants, the sense of belonging to a single “country” had always been fragile. For the average person, the idea of reunification mattered far less than the quality of their own life. And division was not without its beneficiaries. Some had grown comfortable in the chaos. In the grain-rich states of the Midwest, for example, local farmers and merchants were perfectly content to keep the South out, rather than let it return and compete for their markets. The western states, too, had little interest in reunification. Since it did not concern their own livelihoods, many of them viewed the issue with cool detachment. To put it simply, the people had no objection to the idea of unifying the South so long as they were not the ones expected to fight for it. This sentiment had already shown itself during the Civil War. States with little to gain had openly resisted the federal government’s draft orders. Of course, the interference of foreign powers was another major factor. When their own security was under threat, even the most supportive states had to think twice before taking action. In the end, the ones who truly desired reunification were the eastern states, where the great industrial and financial capitalists were concentrated. The motivation of these magnates was simple and powerful: profit. They supported unification because it promised stability and opportunity but when it came to risking their lives on the battlefield, not one of them was willing to step forward. In this regard, Jewish capital set an example for the American bourgeoisie: “They have everything except a country.” Ordinary people didn’t want to fight, while those who did were unwilling to go to the battlefield. The failure of the United States’ reunification was practically inevitable. Given this situation, it was no surprise that the antiwar movement became the dominant voice in society. After all, the capitalists who supported unifying the country through force were only a small minority among the population. President Grover Cleveland, who was determined to reunify the nation, could only “see it all and worry in silence,” yet he was powerless to change the situation. In truth, Cleveland wasn’t the first president after the Civil War to dream of bringing the South back into the Union. Many of his predecessors had already tried, but every one of them failed miserably. His immediate predecessor, in particular, had faced a rare opportunity when the European War broke out in Europe. That was the time when the European powers were least able to interfere in the Americas. If the U.S. had wanted to use force to reunify the South, that moment would have been perfect. The European nations were all busy fighting France, and the only one still standing on the sidelines was Britain. The British government, however, was not foolish enough to jump into another American conflict. For Britain, the long-standing policy had always been “Europe first, America later.” Unfortunately, just as the opportunity presented itself, fierce debates erupted within the United States over whether to use military force. From Congress down to ordinary citizens, the nation was torn apart by the issue. Several state governments publicly declared they would not send troops for another civil war, leaving the president who proposed the reunification plan utterly humiliated. Before the U.S. could even reach an internal consensus, the European War had already ended, and the fleeting opportunity vanished forever. The Confederacy was not an easy opponent either. It was the second-strongest nation in the Americas after the United States itself. Although the North had more than double the South’s total national power, in terms of military strength, that advantage was drastically reduced. If European powers were to intervene again, that difference could easily turn into a disadvantage. The European great powers had repeatedly warned the Union not to resort to force in reuniting the nation. Even after the establishment of the European Alliance, they continued sending envoys to “remind” the Americans to stay in line. If the U.S. dared to break the fragile peace in the Americas, a coalition invasion by the great powers would be inevitable. At that point, not only would reunification fail, but even the North itself might be divided once again. One could look back at the “Zonal Occupation Plan” that the European powers had proposed during the original Civil War for reference. In short, Britain, France, Austria, and Prussia would have led the European nations in sending joint forces to carve up and occupy the United States by zones. Of course, that was mostly a bluff. If they had truly gone to war, everyone would have had to stop and think carefully about whether it was worth the cost. Still, such intimidation worked well on the inexperienced Americans of the time. After his predecessor’s humiliating failure, President Grover Cleveland had no intention of stubbornly repeating the same mistake. To achieve national reunification, he decided to take a roundabout approach: to stir up conflicts among the European powers and create a favorable international environment for reunification. It was under this strategy that the Cuban independence movement erupted. Acting behind the scenes, Cleveland secretly smuggled several shipments of arms to the rebels, successfully pitting Britain and Spain against each other. At the same time, he planted seeds of suspicion between Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It was, by all accounts, a clever move—though ultimately, Spain’s decline blunted the success of the plan.
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