District of Columbia

The **District of Columbia**, known previously as **Washington D.C.**, was a city located in Maryland, once the capital of the United States government.

## District of Columbia

Photo depicting Washington D.C., late 1920s.

### Population

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Originally a federal district and situated on the Potomac River, D.C., Washington was the political and cultural life center of pre-war America, boasting high rates of diversity alongside iconic monuments and architecture such as the Lincoln Memorial, White House, and the Capitol to name a few. Destroyed during the Battle of Washington D.C. during the Second American Civil War, plans to reconstruct the capital have so far gone nowhere. As a result, this city, once a quintessential example of American life, prosperity and democracy, remains indefinitely destroyed for the past 15 years.

## History

The history of Washington D.C. dates back to the indigenous Americans that once populated the regions of the East Coast, including the Potomac. The late 1790s saw the reconstruction of the modern city, moving the then young United States’ capital from Philadelphia to D.C. in 1800. Following various events of the 19th century, including the War of 1812 and the First American Civil War, Washington experienced record growth and urbanization during the latter half of the century, even as elsewhere, following the Insurgency Wars, political, economic and social life in the country started to stagnate.

### Before the coup

In the years building up to the infamous Washington Coup and the civil war, Washington stayed mostly untouched from the violence seen elsewhere across the country. The city was one of a notable few which saw little outside influence from the Socialists or the Nationalists, but that didn’t stop a sizable minority of them from forming in the capital.

But in the months before April 4th, many in D.C. felt a growing atmosphere of “tension and darkness”, as one soldier later described before the war. The race riots of 1919, the brawls, political fights and strikes created a sense of paranoia in the capital that couldn’t be stopped. Many felt war was imminent, and those who had fled D.C. to Canada later recalled that, before the war, a good deal of people had already started making plans to flee the city if needed, though the extent of these claims, as well as evidence of anything notable, such as evacuation routes, remains to be seen.

### The days of war

#### The coup

The day of April 4th, in the perspective of the Washingtonians, was frightening and confusing. In the early morning, when the coup had first taken place, the military placed the city on lockdown, while tanks and soldiers patrolled the streets. With Warren G. Harding arrested, a coalition of military officers replaced him, and at 9 AM, 2 hours since the coup, the officers, through publicized, telegrammed speeches, announced the arrest of the president and the declaration of martial law. They encouraged the continuation of “life as normal”, but enforced a strict curfew that would begin at 9 PM, ending at 6 AM.

Wasting no time, the military quickly took control of the city in almost every possible way. Communication and telegram lines were temporarily censored and travel was prohibited. Newspaper stands and publications are suspended the same day. Any communication outside the capital was mostly told orally, as ordinary citizens didn’t have the means as they once had to information. Most citizens stayed home from the 4th to the 6th, but slowly people began leaving, primarily for work as encouraged by the military coalition. As one refugee later explained in the Toronto Star, years after the war ended:

*It was a terrifying and haunting time. It occurred so quickly, and none of us knew what to do, how to act, if we should’ve just stayed home or go out. The fear of being shot, of being killed was real and debilitating. We didn’t know how the rest of the United States was operating, or what was going on other than rumors. It became clear to us that there was a war, but we didn’t hear any of the details…The restrictions became worse, rationing was introduced and the curfew was expanded. We heard the city was becoming vulnerable, and that “rebel” armies were advancing, but the military assured us that they had the situation under control. It became clear we couldn’t stay, and so many of us tried fleeing via the Potomac, as by land it was impossible. Hastily, we left everything behind in briskly prepared, small fishing vessels that would evacuate us all the way to New Brunswick, praying along the way that the Canadians would accept us.*

#### Increasingly dire circumstances

With the military under total control of DC, life soon began to deteriorate, but ordinary citizens were more or less powerless to change their circumstances. With the creation and early successes of the Peoples’ Union of America, the commanding officers of the capital ordered the fortification of Columbia. Thousands of ordinary civilians, mainly women and even some children, were conscripted. But amid the closing of the city’s borders to imports of clothes, material and food supplies due to the capital’s vulnerability, these workers were hit with intense famine which soon after spread to the rest of the population.

Almost two years into the coup, with war raging all over the continental United States, the capital became ever more vulnerable. Unable to keep a stabilized frontline, many officers worried about the possible loss and its implications for the war. DC was, at this point, paralyzed. People barely left their houses except to gather food and supplies, and the fortifications that were assembled proved to be effectively useless due to the sheer exhaustion and starvation the civilian workers were facing. And yet, the city did not face a total collapse as intense and dire as everything was. Food, while not being imported by land, was imported by the sea with the help of international relief efforts even as the Atlantic was a battleground. These supplies, as short as they were, helped keep death rates in the capital low, until around June.

#### Civilian evacuations

With the Peoples’ Union first attempt into DC failing in the Summer, the military coalition in charge of Washington finally, with the help of the military, started a mass evacuation of most citizens via the sea. These efforts would last until early August, when the infamous Battle of Washington D.C. would take place.

Using the United States’ position on the world stage, and amid still ongoing famine relief efforts, the US made a plea to worldwide powers in helping the civilian population flee DC, at whatever means necessary. For their part, Canada was the most notable participant in these efforts, supplying the Federalists with large, empty cargo ships that could house dozens or even hundreds of people at a time. Due to the crammed efforts of evacuation however, many of the vessels or transportation provided were small, civilian fishing ships, which ended up jamming dozens of people on said ships at one time. The evacuation of thousands of civilians was not without cost, however.

Due to the rapid pace of this campaign, many of these ships, already overflowing with people, sunk in the Atlantic, with hundreds of people losing their lives by drowning, but an actual number is hard to come by. Nevertheless, an estimated 50,000 individuals were successfully evacuated and arrived in Canada in the following months, which left what remained of Washington’s population (about 350,000 people) stranded, without food, shelter or support. Once the American Red army began their attack on August 3rd, it was repelled only a few days later, and for the next two weeks another 2500 people were evacuated before total war engulfed the capital.

#### The Battle of Washington D.C.

On the 15th of August, the Maryland Army Group, at the behest of military commanders in New York, launched an attack on the outskirts of Washington D.C., beginning the Battle of Washington D.C. It was particularly brutal, because of the stubborn behavior of both sides in the war. Neither the Federalists nor the People’s Army would give up an inch of land, and instead the ruthless battle was fought tooth and nail for every inch of land. As for the 300,000 people still within city limits, many hid in underground spaces and bunkers hoping to avoid the onslaught, while thousands of others tried their luck at sea or fleeing via the Potomac in any way possible even as all efforts of international relief and evacuations had frozen with the city surrounded by enemy forces.

For the next two months fighting raged on, ravaging the capital to no end and no limit. The American Red Army used their air superiority by strategically bombing key infrastructure and industrial bases all over, unwillingly killing thousands of civilians hiding in those locations. By late September, with the city cut off from all lines of communication, even for Federal commanders, those that stayed and fought adapted a policy of scorched earth, trying to systemically burn and destroy anything that they could not carry or bring with them. But as October rolled around, Union commanders in charge of the Battle turned increasingly optimistic about the end to the war, with the capital finally turning over to their side. With no support it would only be a matter of time before the rest of United States Army was snuffed out, but that did not mean the remainder of the battle would be easy to get through, quite the contrary.

Two weeks later, in Delaware, a slew of high commanders, impatient to see the end of the battle, wanted to systemically clear out the last enemy holdouts in the quickest way possible. Willing to accept the possible damage it may cause, these men proposed and accepted the idea of using the Union’s air superiority to carpet bomb and pacify the capital.

On October 20th, the streets of D.C. were unusually silent for a few hours before it was broken by the incoming arrival of dozens of bombers, and the campaign, called Operation Engels, officially began. What remained of Washington’s skyline or its historic monuments were leveled, the most famous example of which was the bombing of Union Station, which was rumored to be a Federal holdout, creating over 200 casualties at the Station alone.

After over a week of silence from the army and Air Force, the government declared the Battle of Washington to be over, to the Great relief of the Union public. With the occupation of the capital, most people started to assume that the war, which had been ongoing for over two years would finally end. While that would be the case not long after with the departure of the United States military, a new development of the war would shock the entire world, and prove to end the Union’s once idealistic plans of rebuilding the capital, forestalling it for years to come.

#### The Second Burning of Washington

The city of Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of Operation Engels, became a ghost city. Most buildings were completely destroyed. All roads, ports and entry into the city was gone, and those in the army report the capital’s conditions. Some describe a large black atmosphere that shut out all sunlight. The air was unbreathable, forcing all soldiers to be stationed miles away from the District. But because practically no one was allowed inside the city, it is unknown how the fire started, but the most believed theory was that, due to the dry, flammable atmosphere, the conditions were ripe and practically perfect for a fire to start and spread, and that it was simply started by nature.

On November 2nd, at 8 A.M., air patrol over the city reported seeing a “bright, red light” over the National Mall. It was later identified to be a “fire of small scale” just one hour later, but by 10 A.M., air patrol reported the “worrying development” of the fire, as it engulfed what remained of the National Mall area. Due to the confusing reports over the fires and the general weakness of the central government in New York, plans to extinguish the fire or even get it under control were few and far between.

By 12 P.M. air patrol completely evacuated the city as the fire rapidly expanded and was expected to spread out the borders of D.C. The fires forced the small garrisons stationed in the towns of Arlington and Alexandria. The fires further threatened the city of Fort Washington, but after the fifth day, heavy autumn rains slowed and eventually stopped its spread. Over the next ten days with never-ending rain, the Washington D.C. Fire was finally extinguished, but it left nothing behind in its aftermath.

### Aftermath

The Great Fire of Washington completely destroyed any hope by the Peoples' Union of America to rebuild the cherished District. While it was abandoned, talks of rebuilding never stopped, but they never got off the ground. Multiple internal issues, such as the heavy-handed policies carried out by the Hardliners and the 1927 Spring Putsch also stifled any plans. For now, D.C. remains a relic of the past, remembered by some, but not by most.