This is the second book in the TL-191 series and the first in the American Front trilogy.The world of "How Few Remain" is now experiencing its equivalent of World War I. The tensions in Europe played out in the same way as in our world, and the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia triggered war on an unprecedented scale. However, in North America things are completely different. The fourth member of the Quadruple Entente, the Confederate States of America (the other three being England, France, and Russia), along with its ally, the British dominion of Canada, face off against the United States of America, a close ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The new methods of modern warfare are now ravaging both North America and Europe.In this book, the points of view have shifted completely from "How Few Remain". In the earlier book, most of the viewpoint characters were famous historical figures such as Samuel Clemens and Theodore Roosevelt. Here they are all regular people caught up in the war. Even when some of the same characters appear, such as US president Teddy Roosevelt and an elderly, hide-bound General Custer, they are only seen through the eyes of other, lower-ranking figures. This plays out quite well in showing how regular people are affected by war, especially such a new and devastatingly different one.However, in trying to follow our history too closely, Turtledove seems to ignore the differences North America would make in a WWI-style conflict. While mention is made of the western part of North America not following the stalemate of trench warfare due to its size, the eastern portion of the continent is under the same sort of deadlock as in Europe. In reality, this would be very unlikely due to the lower population density. Even with machine guns and artillery, North America is simply too big to allow the the sort of stalemate that happened in Western Europe. The only way to do flanking maneuvers in Europe was the famous "race to the sea". In North America however, there's simply too much space, and there's no way either the USA or the CSA could have locked up the entire front with trenches and barbed wire, let alone find enough men to defend it all. In the book, this is all ignored, and most of the time it reads like war in Europe being reenacted exactly in North America.However, there are other interesting social factors at play that Turtledove portrays quite well. The socialist movement in the USA is very strong, thanks to Lincoln's leftward turn back in "How Few Remain", and socialist agitation risks destabilizing the country. The country itself is much closer to real history's Germany, with the US having learned a lot of administrative techniques from its ally. In the CSA, Marxism runs rampant among the oppressed black labourers, threatening a revolution. The country is much more aristocratic, with the recently-freed blacks constituting the lowest rung of society. It feels like that either country can lose the war due to that sort of revolt and generate a "stabbed in the back" legend like in real history's post-WWI Germany. This is especially acute in the USA, where most of the intelligentsia supporting socialism seem to be Jewish.All in all, this is an engaging book that, strangely, seems to be marred by too much devotion to real history. I hope there's more creative vision in the rest of the trilogy to take things a bit farther away from real history's patterns. After all, North America has very different geography and demographics from Europe, and thing should not shake out in exactly the same way.
Alternate history novels based on a Confederate victory in the Civil War are not new, in fact Harry Turtledove has stated that his inspiration this Great War series came from a magazine article written by MacKinlay Kantor. What sets The Great War: American Front apart is its scope. Half the fun of alternate history fiction is the intellectual exercise of wondering how life would be different if something in the past has changed. Here, in light of the CSA victory related in the previous novel, "How Few Remain", the CSA is a stalwart ally of France and England while the twice humiliated and isolated USA is surrounded by hostile nations to the north and south and has turned to Imperial Germany for support. Naturally, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated North America is immediately thrown into conflict, Presidents Teddy Roosevelt of the US and Woodrow Wilson of the CS quickly declare war. There is no long period of isolationism that protected the intact United States in our history. Turtledove is very erudite in theorizing how the cultures of the two Americas has changed and adapted based on their two diverging roads, from the dashing French flair of the Rebel cavalry officers to the German inspired General Staff, mandatory conscription, and industrial might of the Yankee war machine. But this story has drama as well. Turtledove brings us dozens of narratives from nearly every faction involved in the North American conflict. Some readers may have trouble keeping track of the broad panorama. Fortunately there is a Turtledove Wiki out there that can help. I admire the way he refuses to choose sides in this conflict; this is not wish fulfillment fiction. He makes an effort to make both sides of the conflict ugly and brutal; this is NOT an alternate reality you want to live in. For example, he makes it clear that many of the Yankees are just as racist as the Southerners, perhaps more so because so few blacks live in this USA, and because of resentments over loosing the War of Secession. I doubt that it would really be as bad as he makes it out to be; the abolitionist movements was going strong back in the 1860’s and was of such religious fervor that I doubt it would just dry up after loosing the war. Yet at the same time you find sympathetic characters on all sides. I found myself worrying about the young married couple down in Birmingham just as I felt for the Boston fisherman and his family. The two groups that are perhaps the most sympathetic are the Canadian families (one group in Manitoba and another in Quebec) who must find ways to survive under a brutal occupation by the US Army. The characters are of many backgrounds, races, and political persuasions. Being that I am fascinated by this time period of our history, I found this to be very gripping and immersive. The ending will certainly leave you hanging, mostly because this is just the first book in a three-novel story arc that is part of an overall eleven novel series. If you have the patience and perseverance you will be rewarded by a richly plotted and imagined story an America ripped apart by war.
What do You think about American Front (1999)?
Original view of what could have been, and quite realistic for all I know. As a history buff interested in WW1 and alternate history I liked it. It is told through the eyes of regular people, giving different viewpoints of different sides of the conflict, and showing us what motivates them and the human side of war.What I didn't like at all were the details. They make the story human, but slow it down almost unbearably. Too many characters, too many details, too much to read for too little story. 3.5 stars, rounded up for all the effort that went into it.
—Nikola Tasev
I may include spoilers, so if you're planning to read the book (let's face it; you're not), consider yourself forewarned.First recall that we're talking about an alternate history where the South won the Civil War with the help of England and France. This book takes us to 1914, where World War I is starting. It's England, France, Russia and the Confederates (the "Quadruple Entente") versus the US, Germany, and presumably Austria and the Ottoman Empire. (If the latter two get a mention, it's very brief.) In North America, the war is primarily a struggle of the US versus the Confederates and Canada.The book is, like How Few Remain, told from a variety of perspectives. Unlike HFR, however, TGWAF (are those acronyms annoying enough?) tells the story from the perspective of common people. There are some historical figures present -- I counted Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, George Custer, Eugene Debs and Marcel Duchamp, but I'm sure there were more. These characters, however, are secondary to the everyday folk -- the New England fisherman, the Confederate Army major with the unfortunate surname "Lincoln", the black butler in a South Carolina mansion...There's less excitement in "I wonder what a New England fisherman would do in this timeline" than "I wonder what Abe Lincoln would do if he lost the war (and survived)." The book at times sounded like one of those histories where they try to convince you that the life of ordinary people is more worth studying than the life of kings and statesmen. Sounds fun, huh? Nevertheless, the book succeeded in making me think about World War I in different terms -- by hearing Virginia ripped apart by trench warfare, I could more readily imagine the psychological shock to Europeans. And I could more readily appreciate the benefit to America of not having a war on our home soil during the twentieth century.One of the book's drawbacks is its large cast of characters that makes it hard to remember who's who. Sometimes I had to wait until a soldier cursed the other side to remember which side he was on. Another is that everything is very slow developing and telegraphed. In an early scene, Confederate President Woodrow Wilson is giving a speech in Richmond, and soldiers fire bullets into the air to scare away the crowd. Is it really necessary to have a character wonder to himself what will happen when the bullets come back down? It doesn't move the plot along, and it doesn't really provide any "flavor" to the story.Nevertheless, the alternate history is fairly compelling. By the end of the book, the USA has advanced across most fronts, though the war is stalling. The USA has also pushed the CSA out of Pennsylvania and is trying to retake the parts of Maryland and DC that have fallen. The South is starting to be disrupted by a Marxist revolution led by blacks. That's one of Turtledove's cleverer ideas, and I'm waiting to see how this will play out.
—Jon
I've always mulled over these ideas of alternate histories. What would have happened if Pickett never charged? What if Napoleon didn't fall for Waterloo? What if Hitler never got syphilis and had all of his mental faculties, or was even awake, on D-Day?This book was a great and fun read not only to see what WWI would've been like in North America, but what America with a threatening border enemy would be like in the 1900's. The variety of stories following along in it also reminded me quite a bit of the book Ragtime. There's a Red threat, day to day life behind various enemy lines as well as on various home fronts. There were stories of sailors fighting Atlantic and Pacific battle fronts, and the stories of soldiers in the Yankee and Confederate armies in trenches from Maryland to Kentucky to Oklahoma.Anyway, its a really fun read. The writing is decent, but definitely not superior. That kind of quality where concept seems to outweigh talent, but then you're pleasantly surprised when something really humanistic and genuine crops up. Definitely a recommend.
—Chris
