Turtledove
Register
Advertisement
Baja Californiaflag
Baja-map

Baja California is a Mexican peninsula. It borders the Mexican state of Sonora to the east and the U.S. state of California to the north. A long desert peninsula with few resources and baking sun, it is anchored at the northern end by the city of Tijuana and at the southern end by Cabo San Lucas. It was a single state prior to 1804, when the northern and southern parts were separated.

In 1974, the area southernmost area Baja California, the El Territorio Sur de Baja California, became the state Baja California Sur.

Baja California in The Disunited States of America[]

The country of Baja California shared a border with its mightier neighbor, California. The two countries shared a history of border conflicts, although Baja was hesitant to directly engage California.

Baja California in Southern Victory[]

Following the Confederate purchase of Sonora and Chihuahua in 1881, Baja California was cut off by land from the rest of Mexico and was the only part of Mexico to share a border with US. Due to the subsequent Mexican alliance with the Confederacy in the Great War, as well as its physical isolation from the rest of the Empire, Baja California found itself invaded by the US in 1915. This invasion, indifferently supplied and poorly executed, resulted in many US casualties to the dug-in Mexican Army and their Confederate advisers. The US withdrew to the pre-war border and no territory changed hands at the end of the war.

During the Civil War of the 1920s, many Mexicans fled to the US through Baja, seeking political asylum or simply work in the more prosperous USA. After the Mexicans once again allied with the Confederates during the Second Great War, fighting was slow to begin in the West. The first major blow fell in March 1942, when a US navy task force steamed south from San Diego and bombarded Tijuana to discourage any Mexican or Confederate operations into California.

Baja California was the target of an amphibious invasion by the United States Marine Corps in 1943. The United States seized the peninsula through a combined arms operation involving a simultaneous overland push from California and began naval and air operations against the Confederate west coast in Sonora, restricting the port of Guaymas. While many in the U.S. wondered if the cost have the invasion had been worth it, the C.S. was painfully aware that one more avenue for prosecution of the war had been severed.

At the end of the war, Baja California was the only Mexican territory under US occupation, but the US soldiers there speculated that the US had no intention of retaining the barren, inhospitable piece of land.

Baja California in The Two Georges[]

Lower California was the southernmost province of the North American Union, located just south of its sister Upper California. It was separated by the Gulf of California from the Nuevespañolan province of Sinacoa, and thus was spared the occasional border clashes breaking out between the NAU and Nueva España.

The British Empire obtained the Californias, along with other former Holy Alliance territories, in a 19th century war.

Referneces[]

Advertisement