The Great War: American Front (Great War, #1)

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The Great War: American Front (Great War #1)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 1,724 ratings · 52 reviews

When the Great War engulfed Europe in 1914, the United States and the Confederate States of America, bitter enemies for five decades, entered the fray on opposite sides: the United States aligned with the newly strong Germany, while the Confederacy joined forces with their longtime allies, Britain and France. But it soon became clear to both sides that this fight would be...more

Mass Market Paperback, 562 pages

Published September 19th 2006 by Del Rey (first published May 12th 1998)

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Jun 06, 2013 Chris rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

It was a decent concept and the plot was interesting, but at the end of the day, meh.

It's an alternative history. The idea is the South wins the Civil War because McClellan never gets his little tidbit of Lee's plans at Antietam. Britain and France end up allies of the CSA, which means the US goes ally shopping and lands as part of the German/Austro-Hungarian alliance. That's all decently plausible.

The trouble is the format. The point of view jumps around about 20 different people, none of whom...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Sean Mcculloch rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the sequel to "How Few Remain", and unilke that book, it shows the point of views of regular people (instead of famous ones like Abe Lincoln) are dealing with the events in the book. Famous people are still around (Woodrow Wilson is president of the South, Teddy Roosevelt in the north), but you see them from an external perspective. I kind of liked that- it made it a little easier to suspend my disbelief- I don't have to ask myself questions like "Would Lincoln really be thinking that wa...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Jon rated it 2 of 5 stars

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...more 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.
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May 25, 2012 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

I was finally able to get into it toward the end. Of the three Turtledove books I read, it was by all means my LEAST favorite. I enjoy science fiction writers' who have interesting ideas about history and politics and the way they work. That's why I enjoyed Guns of the South and How Few Remain so much. There was less of that in this novel, which had a large component of military scenes which frankly bored me. (I'm the kind of guy who skipped over Tom Clancy's action scenes and focused on the bac...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Kb rated it 4 of 5 stars

American Front picks up about 20 years after How Few Remain leaves off. Certain characters have since died but continue to influence plot development. Other characters have grown and taken on greater importance. This novel has less to do with the geopolitical side of war as it does the personal. The focus shifts between about 6 or 7 different perspectives, from a farmer in Manitoba to a US soldier on the Virginia front to a young, wealthy woman who owns a plantation outside of Charleston, SC, a...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Tony duncan rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had mixed feelings about this while reading, but was mostly won over. Great character detail; and really believable scenario's with everyday people who are caught up in WW1, with the key factor being that The South Won the Civil war and they are each allied with opposite factions. the US with France German, Japan, (And assume Russia), and US with Germany Austria (and Assume Ottoman).
Some elements I did NOT believe. the institutionalized brutality of northern soldier, their use of WMD's and NA...more

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Apr 16, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 bi...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Ryan Mccormick rated it 5 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book, the premise is very good and I found it highly entertaining. The historical plausibility is relatively good (the author doesn't consider large extenuating circumstances that a separate America would have one the world as a whole, but it makes a much better story since some amount of continuity with the real historical events allows the reader to better relate to the story. Overall I would highly recommend this to any lover of history (especially military history) who...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Pål Bakka rated it 4 of 5 stars

Five stars for the way he conceptualizes the CSA. But only two for his military history. Turtledove does not seem to understand how the late 19th Century conscript, mobilization army worked. If the USA had "gone Prussian" it would have had a real General Staff system, which is apparently absent from the field armies, and a neat system of higher formations (divisions, corps, armies) in peacetime. Whichmeans that the highest rank in the army would have had to be a full general. Custer would have b...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Oleksiy Kononov rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sequel to How Few Remain. Summer 1914, hostilities between the US and CSA continue, Europe breaks into WWI. The US, being in alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, has to declare war on the CSA and Canada, an American war theater has been open.
A remarkable masterpiece of alternate history. Turtledove used a lot real WWI details by simply shifting them to North America. Gas attacks, seize fire during Xmas 1914, non-stop development of new airplanes, war gear... My only criticism is in the dev...more

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Sep 04, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of alternate history

Shelves: 2011

This is the first book of Harry Turtledove's Great War (alternate WWI) trilogy, and second book overall in what is known as the "Southern Victory" series. This book follows "How Few Remains", which introduces an alternate 1880s where due to one single small changed event, the Confederacy was able to force the Union's hand early in the Civil War, found allies with England and France (and consequently, Canada) and formed a divided America. The CSA's desire to purchase Pacific Mexican states caused...more This is the first book of Harry Turtledove's Great War (alternate WWI) trilogy, and second book overall in what is known as the "Southern Victory" series. This book follows "How Few Remains", which introduces an alternate 1880s where due to one single small changed event, the Confederacy was able to force the Union's hand early in the Civil War, found allies with England and France (and consequently, Canada) and formed a divided America. The CSA's desire to purchase Pacific Mexican states caused a second Civil war. The USA fought alone against a CSA that was, from the onset, allied with England and France. It led to a CSA victory, and a lesson for the USA: They need allies, and the empire of Germany was the choice.

This is the background for American Front, where WWI in this universe pairs the USA on Germany's side, and the CSA with England and France. This book, as referenced by the title, contains no action in Europe. The battle in America on multiple fronts parallels what actually happened in Europe. Invasions stalled into trench stalemates, a battle of inches, early air warfare, machine guns, grenades and the introduction of chemical warfare. Teddy Roosevelt is the USA president, and Woodrow Wilson is the CSA president.

The action is definitely up from the previous book but, for better or worse, so are the locations and characters. Halfway through this book, I was regretting having not written down characters in a notebook and whose side they are on. I was not always positive when I was reading a perspective of a character for the first or second time. It also wasn't immediately clear which political perspective was covered. This is not a criticism, but just the consequence of the type of story it is.

Turtledove's universe opens the way for two revolutions developing in each country: in the USA, a socialist underground movement similar to what actually occurred in Russia; and in the CSA, a negro uprising. These are still in the foreshadowing stage of this book, except for one at the very end.

There are nine books remaining in what is becoming an increasingly nightmarish vision of what, not just the country, but the whole world could have been like had the South won the Civil War. As with the previous book in this series, any knowledge of actual history and characters will make this book more meaningful.(less)

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Sep 27, 2012 Peter Federman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Uh oh. I had made a list of books I wanted to read, even bought a few, and then on the spur of the moment, I decided to check out "The Master of Alternate History", Harry Turtledove. And, of course, I'm completely hooked. I am not going to say that these books are particularly well-written (think Tom Clancy, etc. More plot-driven than anything else) but as a huge history junkie, I can't believe I hadn't read anything by him before. In any case, he has 40-50 books, all over 500 pages, so I've got...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Mike Grady rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010s

The Great War: American front is the first book of the Great War Trilogy within the Southern Victory Series. This book centers on the United States and the expanded Confederate States entry into World War I. As with most Harry Turtledove books, this entry contains several fascinating "what ifs" that are all plausibly presented within the story. While the story is understandably complex, it is told through several characters placed throughout the theater. Unfortunately, I did find some of the cha...more

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Mar 30, 2009 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: action, alternate-history, character-studies, culture-and-politics, fantasy, military, period-fiction

Harry Turtledove continues his exploration of the alternate history track he began at a pivotal point in the Civil War with How Few Remain - as always, I'm struck by the amount of thought he's put into the details of his imaginary world, the way he integrates real historical characters into his altered circumstances, and the logical way it fits together - it's very easy to believe that given some events happening differently, this could be real history and our own could just as easily be the fic...more

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Sep 15, 2008 Cleverusername2 added it · review of another edition

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, "H...more 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.(less)

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Jun 02, 2008 Wayne rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Any history buff

Recommended to Wayne by: Chris Dear

Shelves: fiction

This is a continuation of Harry Turtledove's book How Few Remain. The Confederacy won the Civil war and the Second Mexican War. It is now 1914, Archduke Ferdinand has been assasinated. The great countries of Europe explode into war and the USA and CSA line up with their allies. The USA with Germany and the CSA with Britain, France, Russia, and Canada. The war quickly bogs down into trench warfare and vast casualties on both sides. The USA, like Germany, has two fronts, one with the CSA and one...more This is a continuation of Harry Turtledove's book How Few Remain. The Confederacy won the Civil war and the Second Mexican War. It is now 1914, Archduke Ferdinand has been assasinated. The great countries of Europe explode into war and the USA and CSA line up with their allies. The USA with Germany and the CSA with Britain, France, Russia, and Canada. The war quickly bogs down into trench warfare and vast casualties on both sides. The USA, like Germany, has two fronts, one with the CSA and one with Canada. In addition to the war both sides have to contend with unhappy populations at home. The socialist party is gaining ground in the USA, and the blacks in the south have discovered Marx, Engels, and Lincoln. They are preparing for the class revolution that will be a direct result of this war.
Turtledove tells the story through many characters that are on either side of the conflict in various situations. A fisherman in Boston, a farmer in Winnipeg, a sailor in the Pacific, various men from both sides who flocked to the war and became embroiled in the trenches. For the most part none of the characters have anything to do with each other. While this style lets the author give a big picture to a wide ranging conflict and both sides of the story, as each side sees the other as evil incarnate, it tends to give a choppy sporadic feel to the story. There is no narrator tying things together and the reader does not find something out until the characters do. As a result I found myself less interested than "How Few Remain". But as the story moved on I became more and more involved until the end of the book and now I can't wait to read the next one. It just took a while to get into this one.
I enjoyed the story and how Turtledove rewrites history with different characters. The same events seem to happen, just in slightly different ways and with different consequences than in the real world. As someone who likes to play "what if" with history I enjoy seeing his interpretation.
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Apr 05, 2008 DaveHalligan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the second part of Harry Turtledove’s ‘Timeline-191’ series. Following The USA’s defeat at the hands of the Confederacy, Britain and France in the Second Mexican War in ‘How Few Remain’ the United States allies with Germany. Meanwhile the Confederacy continues its good relations with Britain and France. As such, when World War 1 breaks out the United States, under President Theodore Roosevelt, and the Confederacy, under President Woodrow Wilson are once again at war. The book is filled w...more

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Nov 21, 2007 The other John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history

There are plenty alternate history tales based on the South winning the Civil War. The ones I have read usually deal with thus and such battle or focus on the war itself. This book, however, looks at what might have happened fifty years later. The year is 1914. Archduke Ferdinand has been assassinated in Sarajevo, and the nations of Europe are busy declaring war on each other. The Confederate States of America honors it's alliance with England and France and declares war on the Central Powers. U...more

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Aug 02, 2011 Fred rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history

Just finished this today. This is really an interesting read. World War I fought in America because the South won the Civil War and had it's independence. So once the battle lines are drawn in this one, it ends up being the U.S., China and Germany versus the C.S.A., Canada, Great Britain, Japan, and France.

Trench warfare in America is interesting to say the least.

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Oct 22, 2009 Derek rated it 5 of 5 stars

this is an excellent book loved the characters and it is suprisingly plausible i showd it to my american history proffesor and he said the plot is actually beleivable "but a stretch" anyway its a great book i recommend this to all history and military book fans

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Dec 13, 2008 Ron Horner rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history

This is a continuation of Turtledove's series that re-imagines how world history could have played out had the CSA won the Civil War. This book tells the story of how the USA and the CSA become enbroiled in the First World War as they come to aid of their closest allies, Germany and Britian respectivly.

The story evolves through the eyes of a number of different individuals on both sides of the conflict spread across the North American continent. One of the things that I enjoyed most about this b...more

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Apr 01, 2012 John rated it 1 of 5 stars

Cool premise, and based enough in the general aspect of WWI history to appeal to history buffs. Long, though, and it seemed like it took forever for things to happen after the (many, many) characters were introduced. And then not much happened. I'll read the other 2, but if they don't start poppin real soon, I probably won't read anything else by him.

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Jan 22, 2012 Ryan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Didn't really care that for "How Few Remain" the book that preceded this in Harry Turtledove's alternate timeline, but I kept on because alternate history novels are an interest of mine. Unfortunately, I did not think that this was much better than "How Few Remain".

Too many of the characters were uninteresting and the way Turtledove wrote the story just made the entire Great War from the American perspective dull. It also didn't help that the European front is not even broached. I get that he w...more

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Nov 20, 2011 Triopticon marked it as to-read · review of another edition

I am a fan of alternate history but not sure if I am a fan of Civil War era alternate history... So this will be something new for me and hopefully it is a good read and I won't have to trudge through it...

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Jul 28, 2011 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars

A well done book, but kinda horrifying. I made it through but barely. Couldn't do the sequel because it was too depressing in concept.

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Oct 28, 2009 Karl Schaeffer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Turtledove's Civil War alternate history now up to WWI. The North is allied with Kaiser Bill and the South is allied with the Brits.

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Jul 26, 2009 Denis Kaufman rated it 3 of 5 stars

Harry Turtledove re-imagines WWI fought on the North American continent, between the USA and CSA -- as well as on the seas and in Europe.

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Jul 14, 2011 Dianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

An alternate history that really made me think differently about the civil war, and why a United States is so important.

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Sep 11, 2010 Linwe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: authors-to-watch, time-travel-alternate-history

Great epic feeling, gave a good idea of what the war must of been like, even though this is alternate history and not straight historical fiction. It had a lot of characters though, which made it hard to follow sometimes.

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Jul 02, 2010 Dergrossest rated it 3 of 5 stars

More silliness from the king of pulp alternate military history. Fun again.

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About Harry Turtledove

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original sce...more

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Books by Harry Turtledove

Worldwar: In the Balance (Worldwar, Book 1)

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