different "bad guy" in WWII

[Dan Reilly The Great]

So most WWII ALT's revolve around how WWII as we remember it might have turned out, but what I want to know how you can make the conflict itself take a drastically different shape. So in stead of Nazi Germany against most of the rest of Europe, how about something different, like say poland, or maybe even France. So your challenge if you choose to accept it is with a POD starting any time after the start of WWI make WWII be fought on a comparable scale to OTL WWII but with different alliances. Please refrain from the standards such as a non nazi Germany, or a German Soviet alliance, or just Europe versus the USSR. Extra points for a later POD, or for something completely out of left field, like allies vs. Portugal or something like that, major bonus points if you can do both.

[wilcoxchar]

I've had some ideas for an HOI3 mod based on Poland as the leader of the fascist side instead of Germany, but I don't have much of a history surrounding it, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to balance it.

[B_Munro]

Well, assuming we have post-end-of-Russian revolution PODs only...

Fascist block (Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Hungary) vs. UK-Soviet alliance after Poland, Italy, and France refuse to withdraw from German territory after they bitchslap Surviving Weimar Germany.

Un-Fascist Britain, Musso's Italy, Poland, Romania and Ordinary Military Regime Germany vs. Soviet Union, the Spanish Republic, and the French Fourth Republic (not Commie, but pretty lefty) after Un-Fascist Britain's efforts to destablize the Soviet Union's Central Asian and Caucus states go pear-shaped.

Great Britain, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, heck, pretty much all of Europe, Mexico and Americas on south vs fascist USA and its Chinese allies and Soviet co-belligerents (actually, the USSR was just trying to grab eastern Poland while everyone was distracted, but the Germans had to go and overreact).

Bruce

[charl]

How about a German victory in WW1? That could lead to another war analogous to WW2 started by French aggression.

[Wolfpaw]

Originally Posted by charl

How about a German victory in WW1? That could lead to another war analogous to WW2 started by French aggression.

That's a good but it's been done before. A lot. Like, almost in every CP victory TL. Usually Anglo-French aggression/revanchism soon (usually) joined by an equally revanchist White Russia.

Maybe if we had Hungary and Poland team-up to counterbalance to Germany by taking on the Little Entente and dominating Southeastern and parts of Central Europe. Maybe they wind up invading Czechoslovakia (after Hungary settles its score with Romania, of course ) and this provokes a French-British-German (maybe Italian?) coalition against them!

[benjamin]

This POD is a bit too late for any really original match-ups. Poland and Portugal can't suddenly become major powers that would threaten Europe let alone the World. I think a plausible alliance could perhaps arise based around a nationalist/Catholic Bloc consisting of France, Spain and Italy (with Portugal absorbed by Spain and a possible independent Bavaria). This Bloc would have allies in South America. Arrayed against them would be an uneasy alliance of Britain, Scandinavia, Soviet Union and Turkey (with minor allies scattered about the Balkans and South America). Poland and Austria would lean Catholic and would most likely become the first battle grounds. Northern Germany would lean towards the British in hopes of re-unifying Germany by bringing Bavaria back into the fold. The US could easily come involved if the fighting spread to South America and the Monroe Doctrine became threatened. Asia and Africa would be peripheries but the presence of colonies and an aggressive Japan would ensure that at least some fighting occurred in that region.

Benjamin