In effect, while conceding defeat in this war, Blaine was setting the stage for the next one, instilling in U.S. citizens an ever-present desire for and expectation of revenge upon the Confederacy and the British Empire while embarking on an intensive program of systematic militarization on the German model, with the vision of making the United States a kind of second Prussia. Turtledove's model in our history was evidently the French desire for revenge on Germany ("Revanchism") following their defeat in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.