July 1919 President Woodrow Wilson is assasinated two days after his return to the United States by a 'lone gunman' deeply offended by the corruption of the President's bodily fluids by the 'whores and degenerates' of gay Paree. The assasin is an isolationist, conservative Irish-American named Buchanan, but socialists and Negroes get the blame anyway given the time and place. The Treaty of Versailles, complete with the Covenant of the League of Nations, passes the House and Senate as a tribute to the martyred President with only a few minor 'reservations' established by Henry Cabot Lodge. The US signs a treaty of alliance with the UK and France along with it; well after all why not? President Marshall is defeated in 1920 by Republican Warren Harding. A lot of Irreconcilable Republicans want to see the US withdraw from the League now that they've got their own man in the White House, but like his immediate predecessor Harding is inclined to get along rather than make waves. The US is already in; what harm could it do? He recalls Ambassador House and dispatches his good buddy international banker and WWI veteran Charles Dawes out to represent the US in Geneva. Now what? The US is still going to be quite isolationist in the 1920s and 1930s; it's doubtful that having an American around is going to make the League of Nations do anything about Mussolini, Hitler, and company. But maybe being in there early on could help, if the Americans publically take the side of the British against the French, maybe the French wouldn't feel the need to occupy the Ruhr and give German hyperinflation (and hypernationalism) such a kickstart in this period. Thoughts?

President Woodrow Wilson is assasinated two days after his return to the United States by a 'lone gunman' deeply offended by the corruption of the President's bodily fluids by the 'whores and degenerates' of gay Paree. The assasin is an isolationist, conservative Irish-American named Buchanan, but socialists and Negroes get the blame anyway given the time and place. The Treaty of Versailles, complete with the Covenant of the League of Nations, passes the House and Senate as a tribute to the martyred President with only a few minor 'reservations' established by Henry Cabot Lodge. The US signs a treaty of alliance with the UK and France along with it; well after all why not? President Marshall is defeated in 1920 by Republican Warren Harding. In OTL Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall was reported in the New York Times of April 21, 1919, to the effect that he 'would send a sufficiently large force to Russia to thoroughly exterminate the Bolsheviki.' Evans Clark, *Facts and Fabrications about Soviet Russia* http://books.google.com/books?id=po0bAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA14 (Clark's book is a pro- Bolshevik polemic, but the same quote is found in  Charles Marion Thomas, *Thomas Riley Marshall, Hoosier Statesman,* p. 252.) Does he try to carry out that policy in this ATL?  (Admittedly the quote is from April, when many people in the West had an exaggerated idea of Kolchak's strength.  But Marshall might have just as exaggerated an idea of Denikin's strength in July...)

Does he try to carry out that policy in this ATL?  (Admittedly the quote is from April, when many people in the West had an exaggerated idea of Kolchak's strength.  But Marshall might have just as exaggerated an idea of Denikin's strength in July...) Hm. Marshall really wasn't a strong executive type. I'm not sure he'd be able to really swing policy that way. OTOH, anti-Bolshevik intervention would be _popular_...for a little while. So the AEF in Russia is larger and stays around longer. More dead Americans and Russians, possibly some more radicalized veterans. (Maybe Walt Disney and Ray Kroc get to see some _real_ fighting in the ATL!) Will that be enough to change the outcome of the Russian Civil War? Or do the Bolsheviks just clean up later? - Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

quote is from April, when many people in the West had an exaggerated idea of Kolchak's strength.  But Marshall might have just as exaggerated an idea of Denikin's strength in July...) Hm. Marshall really wasn't a strong executive type. I'm not sure he'd be able to really swing policy that way. OTOH, anti-Bolshevik intervention would be _popular_...for a little while. So the AEF in Russia is larger and stays around longer. More dead Americans and Russians, possibly some more radicalized veterans. (Maybe Walt Disney and Ray Kroc get to see some _real_ fighting in the ATL!) Will that be enough to change the outcome of the Russian Civil War? Or do the Bolsheviks just clean up later? It's about four months between Marshall becoming president in your TL and the final defeat of Denikin's Moscow offensive.  I don't know whether as a logistical matter it's possible for the US to make much difference in that short a period

July 1919 The assasin is an isolationist, conservative Irish-American named Buchanan, but socialists and Negroes get the blame anyway given the time and place. I don't know if that is quite fair to the American Public of 1919 If the assassin is caught why would the blame be cast elsewhere. If he is unknown then of course the obvious blame lay with radicals and subversives, but why would Blacks necessarily come under suspicion. Also Buchanan would have as likely been angered by the closer relationship that the US had taken with the British Empire during and after the War as anything to do with gay Paree . Of course as an assassin, he is a nutcase anyway.

July 1919 The assasin is an isolationist, conservative Irish-American named Buchanan, but socialists and Negroes get the blame anyway given the time and place. I don't know if that is quite fair to the American Public of 1919 If the assassin is caught why would the blame be cast elsewhere. If he is unknown then of course the obvious blame lay with radicals and subversives, but why would Blacks necessarily come under suspicion. Also Buchanan would have as likely been angered by the closer relationship that the US had taken with the British Empire during and after the War as anything to do with gay Paree . Of course as an assassin, he is a nutcase anyway. Irish agitators and Bolsheviki were often grouped together in the American public's mind from November 1917 until the early 1920's.  (After all, they both opposed the war and denounced British imperialism.)  A couple of examples: SEE WORLDWIDE ANARCHIST PLOT; Washington Officials Connect I.W.W., Bolsheviki, and Revolutionists in Many Lands.IRISH AGITATORS ACTIVE Drastic Action by Federal Authorities Likely if Attempt Is Made to Interfere with War.... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F00EEDC1E3BE03ABC4E51... PROTEST OUR INTERFERENCE; Irish Protestant Clergy, in Chicago, Call Sinn Feiners Bolsheviki. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9805E3DA1F38E533A25... Also, blacks who agitated for equality were under suspicion as being under Bolshevik influence, and their support for Irish independence was sometimes noted.  See  Theodore Kornweibel, Jr.,  *Seeing Red: Federal Campaigns Against Black Militancy, 1919-1925*, p. 23:   When a new black monthly, the *Crusader*, appeared in numerous cities, it was quickly judged 'entirely radical' and sympathetic to Bolshevism.  So too, it was claimed, was Garvey's *Negro World*, which carried an editorial urging blacks to join Russia, China, India, Egypt, and Ireland to achieve the freedom of all subject peoples. http://books.google.com/books?id=7Br3bZZzcv8C&pg=PA23&sig=2keHmydBIdM... Indeed, Garvey's post of Provisional President of Africa was modeled after de Valera's Provisional President of Ireland.  See Brian Dooley, *Black and Green:  The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America,* pp. 22-3: A few weeks later, Garvey was interviewed by journalist Charles Mowbray White on his hopes for the UNIA.  Garvey told Mowbray he had already proposed that the organisation's colours should be red, black and green. 'Garvey said red because of sympathy with the Reds of the world , and the Green their sympathy for the Irish in their fight for freedom, and the Black