A Shift in Priorities

[nerdknight01]

¡ HI ! about the Cuba situation, yep, i have the feeling of that island became one more nightmare to the USA army. Some wars are winning by brute force, other wars by science and advanced tecnology, and some wars are winning and losing by will, mind and heart, and i suspect that this be the case of Cuba, because every day are more dificult to justificated that war and invasion, and another factor who going against the USA army invasion: the cost, resources and money for this war because the economic crisis in américa, if i was a guerrilla cuban boss i teach to the cubans: "our enemies have watch and clocks for winning this war, we have wills, minds and hearts, and one more important resource: TIME", finnally i suspect because the internal problems in USA, the economic crisis, etc... the solution for the latinoamerican guerrilla movements and wars be for USA the creation of one "IRON COURTAIN" soviet´s style in the USA borders and that is really irónic, thanks and good luck.

[Expat]

Originally Posted by Jotun

Apart from that, with Spanish being the lingua franca in Central and South America, the insurgents' lessons learned can spread far and wide in very little time. I concur with the comparison to both Vietnam and Afghanistan. What we see is a nominally superior military pinpricked to death while killing more or less indiscriminately in return. The USA's image in Latin America is going to be tarnished for decades to come. That's an understatement.

Do we think that this common cause mixed with common language might overcome nationalism and result in a cohesive state in the Spanish-speaking countries of Central American and the Caribbean? (Should they win back their independence, of course.)

Obviously common cause against Spanish occupation didn't result in a United States of South America, so there is at least a precedent for us to say, "no." But maybe this time it's different, what do people think?

[rast]

The reverse side also has a reverse side.
(Japanese proverb)

When Colonel Yamashita Tomoyuki finally awoke from drunkenness, the sun already shone brightly over Hèzhézú. Last night, his Chinese guides and escorts had taken great pains to get him sloshed. Knowing what they intended, Yamashita had play-acted the conscientious soldier, who at first resists drinking, but finally succumbs to it and totally loses control – although in normal life he abhorred alcohol.
Chinese high-proof booze was a horrible stuff; his head was sore, his throat was raspish and his mouth felt barren. After he had drunken some water and felt slightly better, he checked his camera and his notepad. Yes, they had been touched by strangers the secret check marks he had installed told him. So, this part of the plot had worked.

If the Chinese had copied the pictures from his camera, they now possessed quite some images showing the Russian side of the border. Because the Russians held their borders to China closed and allowed no Chinese in, these pictures should be interesting for his hosts.
Only that these images had not been photographed yesterday, but had been carefully prepared in Japan. The well camouflaged rail installations and roads visible in the background of some of the pictures were not there in reality. What the Chinese might construe as Russian preparations for an attack was Japanese disinformation. Factually, the former Trans-Siberian Railway just ended at a destroyed bridge; there were no elaborate rail installations and marshalling yards on the Russian side.

The Russian border guards had generously allowed him to take pictures. After all, there was nothing of importance to be seen and to be depicted. But in his drinking bout with the Chinese, Yamashita had loudly claimed to have bribed the stupid Russians into turning a blind eye to his photographing.
Normally, only verified information was considered for political and military planning. But his principals had told him that through other channels a faked Russian map would come into Chinese possession, which was to ‘verify’ his faked pictures.

Yamashita’s mission was now complete and he could travel back to Beijing. However, the opportunity to have a close look at what formerly had been the Japanese protectorate of Manchu-Koku was not to be missed. Pretending that he was still sick from the overdose of Baijiu, Yamashita managed to miss his train. The next day, he took the train to Hǎishēnwǎi, where he had a delay of another day before he could eventually catch a train to Beijing.

In former Manchu-Koku, now called Jilin and Heilongjiang, Chinese Prime Minister Chiang’s reputation still seemed to be good. Jilin was highly industrialised – and obviously not suffering much from the recent economic crisis. Yamashita understood that Southern China was hard hit by recession and rebellion, while here in the north there were neither peasant rebels – nor an organised communist underground organisation – and orders from the territory held by Chiang’s troops kept the factories going.
Foodstuffs in the markets, however, were sold at very high prices. Yamashita learned that supply was tenuous. The population of Manchu-Koku was dependent on deliveries from Central China; these were becoming increasingly seldom.

Hǎishēnwǎi was still characterised by Russian architecture. It was understandable that the Russian might want to take it back. Russian Prime Minister Matutin was known to have resisted signing the Treaty of Hèzhézú – and only to have assented in the last minute. Russia was re-arming rapidly, this was known. – Anything else was now left to Chinese Prime Minister Chiang’s paranoia.

[nerdknight01]

¡ HI ! to Expat: i have the nice feeling that the latinoamerican and hispanic territories be winning his wars of independence, BUT of the record sadly the divisions and fights between the distint peoples, groups, countries, etc.. are too much for creating some form of "confederation", i think is posible a certain form of military defense pact, and the economics, cultural areas be strong, but only that, and no more and not less, in any way the good news is that hispanoamérica have some kind of latinoamerica united for emergencies and certain common life problems..
Finally about the japanese, i repeat again, really are the masters spies of this magnificent timeline, almost without pain and work, are creating a better world and a prosperous Japan, and i liked, thanks and good luck.

[Kelenas]

I somewhat doubt that steering Russia and China into armed conflict will create a better world for anyone but, maybe, Japan (and even that could backfire).

- Kelenas

[wietze]

Considering how much plotting is going on, a japanese 'stumbling' around must raise suspicion in at least some circles. Some things are just too coincidental.

[solidpontus]

Hi rast!
I was wondering, how is the relationship between Finland and Russia these days? Any animosity?

Great timeline as always!

[Peabody-Martini]

What the Japanese have done here is so very clever. No one made the Chinese steal the roll of film from that camera. The best part is that if Chiang does something stupid the Chinese have no proof that the Japanese set them up, at least nothing they can admit to.

Any war between Russia and China actually does benefit the Japanese for a couple of reasons. The Chinese killing off the Russians in the far east eliminates a long time rival. The Russians killing off the Chinese gives an excuse to end a partnership that saw the Japanese as a junior partner.

Also with the oil from the East Indies in Japanese hands putting a permanent crimp in Chinese territorial ambitions would become an enticing prospect on the path toward dominating the West Pacific. As for what the rest of the world thinks, in this era the Japanese could not have cared less.

[LordInsane]

Originally Posted by Kelenas

I somewhat doubt that steering Russia and China into armed conflict will create a better world for anyone but, maybe, Japan (and even that could backfire).

- Kelenas

The Pan-Turans might benefit - after all, the Pan-Turans might get a breathing room the Chinese wouldn't really get.

[Ostost]

Woo! Go Japan Go! Sounds like the sun is rising again....

[Kelenas]

Originally Posted by LordInsane

The Pan-Turans might benefit - after all, the Pan-Turans might get a breathing room the Chinese wouldn't really get.

It's possible, though it also depends on General Li's fate. Given his opinion of Xianjing/Uyghurstan China would probably leave them alone if he ends up in a high leadership position.

- Kelenas

[rast]

Originally Posted by solidpontus

I was wondering, how is the relationship between Finland and Russia these days? Any animosity?

The Fins took what the Russians considered theirs. Thus, there's no solid base for a relaxed relationship. However, as long as the Fins remain allies of Germany, there's also no prospect of a Russian armed expedition. - I'd say the relations are at winter temperatures, definitely below zero...

[Monty Burns]

Originally Posted by rast

The Fins took what the Russians considered theirs. Thus, there's no solid base for a relaxed relationship. However, as long as the Fins remain allies of Germany, there's also no prospect of a Russian armed expedition. - I'd say the relations are at winter temperatures, definitely below zero...

The finns are also members of the nordic alliance, right?

Considering who benefits from a Chinese-Russian war, I think many could benefit economically. Even if they both are industrializing rapidly, they'd still buy from abroad.

And then you'll likely have Germany trying to benefit diplomatically by proposing a peace treaty and trying to host negotiations. If Germany then chooses the Russian side, it would improve its relations to what is maybe the most dangerous of its possible future adversaries.

[rast]

Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
(Chinese proverb)

Puyi, the Xuantong Emperor, was used to spending his days in the company of his boyfriends. Unhesitantly consuming the drugs which his friends offered to him, time seemed to become unreal – a large blur interrupted by frequent gay pleasures.
Prime Minister Chiang apparently was endorsing this lifestyle; until one week ago, he never had reproached Puyi for his queer predilection or his drug use.

The more Puyi had been surprised when Chiang brusquely summoned him to produce an heir to the throne. Chiang, who obviously had been drunk, rudely had chased away Bao and Dong, Puyi’s current favourite lovers, with a cane.
“Time you stop this nonsense, boy. – Better stick your prick into Wan Rong and produce the future Emperor.” he had barked impolitely.
Since that day one week ago, Puyi had not been allowed to see his friends.

He had married Wan Rong in 1922, when still in Hǎishēnwǎi under Japanese tutelage, but never had touched her sexually. The same was true for the Imperial Consort Wen Xiu. He wasn’t interested in woman, at least not as objects of passion. They didn’t arouse any libidinous feelings in him…

Now, Chiang, reeking of Baijiu, was confronting him again.
“Don’t waste your time sulking, boy. – Just go visiting Wan Rong and fuck her! Do it now!”
And he really was using his cane to edge Puyi on towards Wan Rong’s rooms.

Wan Rong was hooked on opium since adolescence. Lying on her bed in silent opium-induced ecstasy she hardly seemed to take notice when Puyi and Chiang entered.
“There she is, boy! High like a kite with gum. – She certainly won’t reject your services. Just go and screw her!”
Pushing Puyi ahead, Chiang left the room and closed the door.

Looking down at the ripped and happy face of his wife, Puyi started to weep.

General Li Zongren met Gen Liou Zhuàng-tan at Zhāngyuán in Hebei Province. The legendary founder of the parachute infantry had surrendered to a picket of Li’s forces.
“So, General Liou, am I to greet you as a prisoner or as an ally?”
Liou sighed.
“As an ally. – I’ve quit serving Prime Minister Chiang. He’s turned into a brute bully. There was an attempt on his life some weeks ago involving a whore; since this time has has turned into an irrational alcoholic. – China is far better off without him. – We need a rational leadership that responds to our national necessities, not this rampant maniac. Unfortunately, many of the junior ranks still adore him, because they have no idea what has become of him.”
“You reinforce the impression I already had of him.” answered Li. “I moved my force out of Xinjiang in order to help him stabilise the situation in Central China; but all I get are bombing raids, ground attacks and insults via press and radio.”
“Well, the Air Force leadership is indeed loyal to Chiang. General Yang Hucheng has become his drinking buddy; they are very good friends these days. – General Yan, the air force commander, has completely been sidelined”
“But the aircrews aren’t loyal. – They attack as ordered, but regularly fail to hit anything of importance.”
“Be glad. – They are in a conflict: They adore you for your achievements in Uliassutai and Xinjiang – and they adore Chiang for Chinese unification – so they choose a neutral middle course.”
“Is there any hope that Chiang turns sane again?”
“I don’t think so. – He’s over the top. Since this whore incident, his guards randomly abduct young and pretty women for his sexual satiation. It’s absolutely shameless and embarrassing. – He’s lost all feeling for decent behaviour. – Soong Tse-ven, Madame May-ling’s brother and governor of our central bank, has been tortured to death and his severed head been put on exhibition at the Tiananmen Gate. - In the south and in the west, the troops operate with utter brutality against the peasant uprisings. Chiang has ordered to execute one hundred civilians for every soldier killed. – He’s turned into a bloodthirsty monster, believe me.”
“Unfortunately, it will take some weeks until my armour is complete. At present, I’m still too weak for a thrust towards Beijing.”

[Bmao]

Somewhere in Shanghai, Muharip is laughing is head off...

[wietze]

makes you wonder, that if muharip & his people discover what the japanese are up to, if they will give it a little boomerang twist

[Expat]

More requested bios! Incidentally, if anyone wants bios on people who weren't related to the film industry IOTL, I'd be happy to oblige. No reason to limit these, and I've quite enjoyed doing them!


Alfred Hitchcock spent his early years apprenticed to a London film studio designing title cards. His technical skill led to a UFA apprenticeship, where he came into contact with most of the luminaries of the day, clear influences on his later development. Hitchcock languished in Britain, making a string of lackluster crime whodunnits, until the rise of the socialist party.

Hitchcock's experiences at UFA led to a higher regard with the socialist-run studios. With improving budgets came increasing confidence and several successful projects. Keeping in-line with the government message, he often emphasized the prosecution of the common man by uncontrollable forces in his films.

Never one for front-line service, Hitchcock took refuge in Germany when the Civil War broke out. UFA went so far as to open an auxiliary facility for "one of our most promising foreign alumnus." He mades a couple of pro-British but anti-political films (similar to Tolkien's idea, but of course in a different medium and genre.) Still, the themes were vague enough that the Socialists chose to interpret these as favorable propaganda (the Churchillians of course hated everything emerging from Germany and ignored the films.)

Hitchcock has yet to return to England at this time, citing the superior production facilities available to him in Germany (the superior access to world markets doesn't hurt either.)


Cecil B. DeMille's reputation remains undiminished in the light of world events. A legendary tyrant on the set, he continued to exercise immense personal control over his projects throughout the 1920s, making the films he wanted the way he wanted. As he continued to produced high-quality results, the studio heads left him to his own devices. By the dawn of the 1930s, DeMille remains a prestigious name worldwide, and can be seen as representing the best of what Hollywood has to offer in the way of epic filmmaking.


Josef Von Sternberg entered the film industry (if you could call it that) as a youth running errands and sweeping up at the World Film Studio in New Jersey. He gained enough trust from his employers to start directing B pictures in 1925, but his career was cut short by the rising tide of anti-semitism in America. He and his family fled the country, back to the Vienna of his birth. Eventually, Von Sternberg found work as an assistant to G.W. Pabst, working in Bavaria, upon whose recommendation he was eventually hired as a serial director at Wiener Kunstfilm.

WK had the notion to capitalize on the recent influx of American film talent by recreating the Western genre in various locations throughout the Balkans. The attempt proved largely unsuccessful, however Von Sternberg's offbeat productions gained him enough notice to keep him working on more prestigious projects.

He eventually gained the attention of the Heymshtot, where the first film studios were already being set up in 1927. It was there, in 1928, that he first collaborated with Stella Adler, whom Von Sternberg has made the most famous face of the Heymshtot. Many of his innovative lighting techniques and forays into costume and set design are accomplished solely with Miss Adler in mind. As of 1931 they have made three movies together with plans for a fourth.


Ernst Lubitsch Has enjoyed a robust career in Germany. Originally known for alternating between epics and "softer" fare, he soon grew timid in the face of the colossal battles between Lang and Murnau. He switched almost entirely to quiet, "adult" pictures, both comedies and melodramas. Lubitsch is credited with helping some of the great female talents of German cinema to blossom, and in so doing, has given audiences a picture of what the modern independent woman might be. Later feminist theorists point to Lubitsch's movies as a watershed in women's rights. To quote one, "Lubitsch's heroins taught our mothers how to be feminists."


Victor Fleming became a popular action film director in the 1920s. In the early years of the decade, he pumped out a well-regarded series of westerns, but has more recently made a name for himself (in the US at least) directing films featuring the US Navy's occupation duties in the Caribbean. He has made over 20 films in this genre, most notably 12 in the popular Patrol Boat! series, starring Alan Hale [Sr.] He has had some trouble moving into A pictures, but was recently given a chance to adapt A Tale of Two Cities. The production met with generally favorable reviews, though Fleming has complained in private that the producers altered it to become, "an anti-socialist screed that ruined the whole second act."


Karl Freund spent the first half of the 1920s as Germany's most in-demand cinematographer. In 1924 he was hand-picked by Fritz Lang to take over the Dr. Mabuse series, to which he brought an innovative slant, making the series all his own. Directing four Mabuse films, he took the route of rarely showing Mabuse himself- he doesn't even appear until the third film- with his majordomo, Karl, standing in for him as the "day-to-day" villain (Karl played by a young Peter Lorre, whom Freund is credited with discovering.)

Other successes in the horror genre include The Mummy and an opera-film in the Murnau style based on Schubert's Erlkonig. Growing ever-more the perfectionist, Freund has begun experimenting with clay-based stop-motion animation, to better enable infinitesimal control over each and every shot. His most successful clay animation to date is the 10-minute-long Jekyll & Hyde.


Tod Browning started a promising career as a director in 1917, making a few well-regarded action and dramatic films. The death of his father in 1919 led him into an alcoholic depression that degenerated to drug use within a year, given the ready availability of Mexican narcotics. Ramping up his use to intravenous injections, Browning suffered a cerebral edema in 1923, resulting in the near-complete paralysis of the left side of his body. Entering an extended period of convalescence, he took to writing. By 1931, Browning has developed a substantial following as a writer of intellectual horror novels. His reputation for extreme reclusivity would only seem to add credit to his persona, as no one except his nurses and publisher has seen him emerge from his house in Hilo, Hawaii since 1927.


Howard Hawks joined the US Army Air Corps in 1917 and stayed on to fight in the Mexican Occupation. Upon leaving the service, he spent several years gaining a daredevil reputation across the West. Hawks spent time as a stunt pilot and race car driver, the latter bringing him into contact with the "Veteran's Underworld" emerging on the West Coast. While never joining a gang himself, his reputation for daring and status as a vet gave Hawks access to these motorcycle gangs. He often went on ride-alongs and began experimenting with drugs. These gangs also introduced him to the vice that some would call his downfall.

Hawks began making pornographic movies in 1923. These films were on a much grander scale than the stag films being pumped out at the time, all of them made with vet gang finances. He was known for finding gimmicks to focus his films around, including the recruitment of starlet Luscious Lucille [OTL Mary Astor] to engage in acts on the roof of a moving car speeding through downtown LA or strapped to the wing of an airplane.

In June 1925, Hawks and most of his crew were caught by a Hoover Squad filming an outdoor scene near Los Padres National Forest. Hawks attempted to flee the scene, resulting in a high-speed chase along California Highway 1 through Big Sur. Hawks escaped, but not before sending his pursuers careening over a cliff face. Faced with a murder charge, Hawks quickly slipped onto a Singapore-bound freighter.

Purchasing a new identity in Singapore, he bummed around various Pacific ports of call for the next four years under the name Harold Enfield. He worked as a smuggler, drug dealer, illegal game hunter, and later made boasts of piracy and even cannibalism, though records from this period in his life are sketchy at best.

Enfield emerged from the south seas in 1929 with a boat-load of cash, two missing fingers, and a jagged scar across his face. He set up a large hotel and casino in Singapore and has recently begun to make a name for himself in the criminal underworld of Southeast Asia.

[paulo]

Don't forget Leni Riefenstahl.... one of the genius (in the wrong side, but still a genius) of the 30's in the cinema..... create many of the concepts used even today....

[ANARCHY_4_ALL]

Howard Hawks is bad ass any connection with Howard Highes ITTL

[solidpontus]

I hope Bela Lugosi still got to play count Dracula ITTL