Operation Blackbeard
From Turtledove
Operation Blackbeard was the codename for the Confederate invasion of the United States on June 22, 1941.
[edit] Events preceding the attack
Ever since the Great War, the Confederacy had longed for the return of Kentucky, Sequoyah, Houston, and pieces of Sonora, Arkansas, and Virginia. The United States had been dealing with rising violence from the populations of these lands, who wanted to rejoin their country. The Confederate States had also petitioned and requested the return of these lands since 1933. Eventually, United States President Al Smith agreed to plebiscites to be held in Western Texas, Kentucky, and Sequoyah, under the conditions that Confederate President Jake Featherston would not ask for more territory and would not remilitarize any returned territory. Kentucky and Western Texas voted to rejoin the CSA, while Sequoyah chose to remain in the USA. Soon Featherston remilitarized Kentucky and demanded the return of all the captured territories (even Sequoyah which had voted to remain with the US, due to the high, illegal influx of white US citizens into the Native American state.) Smith refused and decided the time to stop trying to appease Featherston had come.
Tensions grew when German Kaiser Wilhelm II died. His son, Wilhelm III and new Kaiser, refused to return captured territory to France. In response, France, Britain, and the CSA declared war on Germany. Featherston decided the time had come to take the war to North America.
[edit] Operation Blackbeard
The brainchild of Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest III, Chief of the Confederate General Staff, Blackbeard was the CSA's war plan for a quick overwhelming victory. By throwing all the offensive units into one army, the Confederacy planned to push through the state of Ohio and cut the USA in half, forcing a surrender before the USA could fully mobilize its resources and industries for total war.
With Brigadier General George Patton in charge of the armored forces, the Confederate Army of Kentucky invaded Ohio and advanced north to Lake Erie. The bulk of the U.S. defence, commanded by Brigadier General Abner Dowling, was anchored around the state capital, Columbus. The Confederates surrounded the city but pushed on, repelling counterattacks led by U.S. barrel commander Irving Morrell. Patton reached Sandusky, a town on the shore Lake Erie, in the first week of August 1941.
After the USA was cut in two, Confederate President Jake Featherston broadcast over the airwaves a demand for the USA to surrender, offering terms. First, the U.S. was to return Sequoyah and the parts of Virginia and Sonora it had seized after the Great War. Second, the U.S. was to pay back the reparations it had received after the Great War. Third, the U.S. was to remove all fortifications within 100 miles of the border (with the exception of those around Washington, DC) and to not operate barrels or war airplanes in this zone. The C.S. reserved the right to send inspectors at any time to verify this. In return, the C.S. would remove its forces from U.S. territory as quickly as it could.
U.S. President Al Smith refused, much to Featherston's surprise. Smith stated in his broadcast that Featherston could not be trusted and that while the C.S. started the war, the U.S. would finish it. He ordered U.S. counterattacks against the Confederate salient while preparing for an offensive in Virginia that autumn.
The Ohio Campaign was an important success for the Confederacy, but it failed in its primary of goal of forcing the USA to sue for peace. Featherston attempted to build on Blackbeard's gains by launching a renewal of the offensive in Ohio, Operation Coalscuttle, on June 28, 1942, with the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as the target.
