20th Century Khan - A Timeline!
- Thread starter The Federalist
- Start date
An excellent and intreging TL w/significant ramifications for Asia and the Pacific.
The Great Depression, the Expansion of Sternbergia and the Invasion of Manchuria
1929-'30 - The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression hit Japan as hard as any other industrialized country. The trend of outsourcing Japanese labor to cheaper enslaved counterparts in Sternbergia found an even greater following in the years following the Crash. This was true to the extent that many of the Tokyo magnates saw Sternbergia as the only way to achieve viable economic salvation for Japan as the ones who did not take part in this trend found it increasingly difficult to keep up with rising costs in maintaining their businesses. The transfer of Japan's industrial might to Sternbergia meant that more young men would join the army and the ones who were left could pursue higher white collar career tracks like administration or academics. For the radical unltranationalist Kodoha faction of the army, this was proof of Japan's status as the only divine people on Earth as already its citizens enjoyed high standards of living free of the burdens of industrial labor. Something they thought would be expanded upon with the addition of Chinese slave labor.
1931 - Japanese agents plant a bomb on the South Manchuria Railway and blame the explosion on the Chinese. The Japanese use this as a pretext to declare war on China and invade Manchuria. The Kwantung Army invades from all sides. In the North, they invade from the few bases they have left in the FER, in the South, they arrive with a sizable force from Korea while in the West, they invade with the largest force from bases in Mongolia. Sternbergia produced arms at wartime pace churning out masses of tanks and aircraft that led to thunderous advancements at the front. With this, the Japanese surprised the Chinese defenders as heavily armed tank divisions roll into Manchuria at an unstoppable rate. Also, for the first time, Japan had used large-scale bombing over Manchuria's cities. Manchuria fell to the Japanese in November of that year. Manchukuo was founded with Puyi of the Qing installed as its first Emperor.
The Japanese initiate a program of adding Manchuria with all of its economic assets to the Sternbergia sphere. Korean slave workers are brought in to build mines, factories and railways. The mines are for the harvesting of Manchuria's mineral wealth, the factories for quick processing while the railways are part of a much larger planned Trans-Sternbergia Railway that wil build up from the Trans-Siberian Railway of the FER. This railway system would connect Manchuria to Siberia to Mongolia and ensure a speedy route for the delivery of Manchurian raw material to the rest of Sternbergia for processing. All of this would be managed by the Baron and his Ministry of Labor. The political situation of Manchukuo is similar to that of Mongolia's with the Baron taking care of its civil affairs this time as "Special Minister of Infrastructure" and the Japanese taking care of military affairs leaving the Emperor powerless and in a similar position to the Khan of Mongolia. The Baron is now "President of the Far Eastern Republic, Governor of Urga, Special Minister of Infrastructure" of Manchuria and honorary "Commander of the Empire of Japan", a title the Baron was awarded along with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, First Class for his efforts in the invasion of Manchuria.
The Japanese would continue to launch a series of secondary offensive campaigns toward the rest of China but would ultimately end in ceasefire as the Chinese government, riddled with internal problems pursues a policy of nonresistance. The Kwantung Army would focus on trying to reestablish its offensive positions toward China, getting ready for a second round of war as the Baron expanded and consolidated his grip on Japanese economic power in Manchuria.
1929-'30 - The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression hit Japan as hard as any other industrialized country. The trend of outsourcing Japanese labor to cheaper enslaved counterparts in Sternbergia found an even greater following in the years following the Crash. This was true to the extent that many of the Tokyo magnates saw Sternbergia as the only way to achieve viable economic salvation for Japan as the ones who did not take part in this trend found it increasingly difficult to keep up with rising costs in maintaining their businesses. The transfer of Japan's industrial might to Sternbergia meant that more young men would join the army and the ones who were left could pursue higher white collar career tracks like administration or academics. For the radical unltranationalist Kodoha faction of the army, this was proof of Japan's status as the only divine people on Earth as already its citizens enjoyed high standards of living free of the burdens of industrial labor. Something they thought would be expanded upon with the addition of Chinese slave labor.
1931 - Japanese agents plant a bomb on the South Manchuria Railway and blame the explosion on the Chinese. The Japanese use this as a pretext to declare war on China and invade Manchuria. The Kwantung Army invades from all sides. In the North, they invade from the few bases they have left in the FER, in the South, they arrive with a sizable force from Korea while in the West, they invade with the largest force from bases in Mongolia. Sternbergia produced arms at wartime pace churning out masses of tanks and aircraft that led to thunderous advancements at the front. With this, the Japanese surprised the Chinese defenders as heavily armed tank divisions roll into Manchuria at an unstoppable rate. Also, for the first time, Japan had used large-scale bombing over Manchuria's cities. Manchuria fell to the Japanese in November of that year. Manchukuo was founded with Puyi of the Qing installed as its first Emperor.
The Japanese initiate a program of adding Manchuria with all of its economic assets to the Sternbergia sphere. Korean slave workers are brought in to build mines, factories and railways. The mines are for the harvesting of Manchuria's mineral wealth, the factories for quick processing while the railways are part of a much larger planned Trans-Sternbergia Railway that wil build up from the Trans-Siberian Railway of the FER. This railway system would connect Manchuria to Siberia to Mongolia and ensure a speedy route for the delivery of Manchurian raw material to the rest of Sternbergia for processing. All of this would be managed by the Baron and his Ministry of Labor. The political situation of Manchukuo is similar to that of Mongolia's with the Baron taking care of its civil affairs this time as "Special Minister of Infrastructure" and the Japanese taking care of military affairs leaving the Emperor powerless and in a similar position to the Khan of Mongolia. The Baron is now "President of the Far Eastern Republic, Governor of Urga, Special Minister of Infrastructure" of Manchuria and honorary "Commander of the Empire of Japan", a title the Baron was awarded along with the Order of the Sacred Treasure, First Class for his efforts in the invasion of Manchuria.
The Japanese would continue to launch a series of secondary offensive campaigns toward the rest of China but would ultimately end in ceasefire as the Chinese government, riddled with internal problems pursues a policy of nonresistance. The Kwantung Army would focus on trying to reestablish its offensive positions toward China, getting ready for a second round of war as the Baron expanded and consolidated his grip on Japanese economic power in Manchuria.
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The OMB in Ukraine and The May 15th Incident
1932 - Stalin, although always paranoid, was right to fear the possibility of Ukraine slipping out of Soviet control. His collectivization which did its part in the rapid industrialization of the USSR did nothing for the people of Ukraine but cause a great famine of unparalleled proportions. The Ukrainian people had been reduced to starving animals willing to cannibalize their own children in order to survive. Instead of ordering the cessation of the grain confiscations to improve these conditions, Stalin launches a campaign of even greater repression and brutality against the Ukrainians under the guise of stamping out an almost non-existent enemy, the "kulaks". These minority landowning peasants did not make a difference in the grander scheme of things but Stalin would make a convenient scapegoat out of them. The commissars aside from continuing the confiscation of Ukraine's hardearned grain took the lead in executing Stalin's deadly orders in wiping out all opposition, real or imagined. Innocent people were shot dead under the suspicion of being kulaks or of aiding the kulaks. A parallel situation occurred in the neighboring SSR of Kazakhstan where thousands starved to death under similar circumstances.
The spirit of rebellion was certainly instilled in the Ukrainian and Kazakh peoples but how could they rebel if they had nothing? Not even the fruit of their harvests. This is where the Baron would step in. The Soviet famine first came to his attention when several Soviet refugees made their way into Mongolia asking for food. They were captured by the Enlightenment Ministry and propped up as victims of Bolshevik oppression. They told of the atrocities committed by the Stalinist regime as if atrocities of the same degree were unheard of in the Baron's realm.
Seeing how easily these countries could be snatched from Stalin, the Baron conceived a plan of expanding his influence to Ukraine and Soviet Central Asia by taking advantage of the worsening conditions. His initial idea was that before he could prevail over the Soviets in a war between armies, he had to first defeat them in the war between ideas. He needed an ideology just as powerful, just as hateful and just as inspiring as Bolshevism but he figured that his brand of Buddhism, Military Buddhism, no matter how useful and enlightening it was, would not captivate the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people. So, for this he approached a Ukrainian priest, who resided within the FER, known for his anti-Soviet Ukrainian religious-nationalist demagoguery. His name was Father Dimitry Svaroslav. He fled eastward during the revolution and spoke out against the Soviet regime from his home in Vladivostok. He was different from the many other White emigres who did the same in that he combined extreme nationalism with radical religious fervor. He called Ukrainian victims of Soviet oppression, "martyrs", Stalin the "Antichrist" and spoke of "national salvation for the Ukranian people". The Baron was interested with his ideas mostly because of how hateful and radical they sounded when Svarloslav spoke of them. He commissioned the self-proclaimed fifty-three year old "Patriarch of all Ukraine" to write a treatise about his ideas.
While the Patriarch was busy writing, in the summer of that year, the Baron set about establishing the OMB's first foreign intelligence units within the Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Their primary orders were to cause chaos and destruction. Initially, they started aiding the commissars in confiscating grain to help worsen and make more desperate the Ukrainian and Kazakh populations. To further this goal, they started burning the grain and the "kolkhoz" or collective farms. This angered both the people and the commissars with each side blaming the other. Minor operations included the defacement of Soviet statues and iconography. Images of Lenin and Stalin were brought down and scarred. Within the first few weeks of this, the commissars made their reprisals even worse. The mass killings quadrupled in quantity and intensity. Soon, the fires expanded to the forests and the villages and the cities setting the Ukraine and Kazakhstan ablaze.
Amidst the growing chaos, copies of the Patriarch's finished treatise, Dreams of St. Anthony or at least very simplified versions and pieces of it began circulation among the common Ukrainian people via the OMB. The beautiful vision of a "Ukraine freed from Communism" that it described served to embolden the hatred Ukrainians felt toward Stalin, whom the book called with certainty, the "Antichrist". Aside from painting a glorious picture of post-Soviet Ukraine and demonizing Stalin, the treatise told its readers that Ukraine's liberation was at hand and that it would happen within their lifetimes as God willed it. For the Kazakhs, similar propaganda was circulated, the only difference was that it was Islamic in nature. Everyone caught with these texts were arrested and shot for possessing kulak propaganda. It was ignorant of the Soviets to think that they were still facing the "kulak threat" but this is what Stalin thought and anything Stalin thinks is truth and law. Little did the commissars know that their actions would only feed their victims' desire for vengeance. The confiscation of the treatise did not stop the spread of its ideas. Slogans like "Stalin is the Antichrist" and "God Will Save Us" was painted in red on every city street and village square. The message was clear and visible. The will and motivation was burned onto the people's hearts and minds. The Baron had won his war of ideas. All they needed now were the guns...
Meanwhile in Japan, the Depression had taken its toll on the Japanese people. They had been radicalized by the hard times and saw the quasi-fascist methods of the Kwantung Army in running things in the economically prosperous Northern Empire (Sternbergia & Korea) as the way to go. The Kodoha, the ultranationalist faction within the Kwantung Army used this popular support to stage a coup d'etat in what would be known as the May 15th incident. The coup began at dawn in Tokyo as radical Army cadets stormed major government buildings including the Diet. They were reinforced by radical navy officers soon after. Liberal anti-militarist Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated along with several of his political colleagues and aides as they tried to exit the Prime Minister's Office Building. Following this, members of the Kodoha within the high echelons of the Military order their forces to participate in the coup, spreading the rebellion to other Japanese cities. Saito Makoto becomes Prime Minister with the consent of Prince Saionji in the hopes of avoiding a Military takeover but this backfires as the new Prime Minister is coerced by the rebellious officers into issuing a statement declaring the government's complete and total support for the military, reducing him to a puppet Prime Minister. Members of the rival Toseiha faction, which also promotes military rule, join with the Kodoha in executing the coup adding a new pool of manpower to enforce the it. Opposition government ministers are arrested. The end of the day marks the beginning of the Japanese military dictatorship.
1932 - Stalin, although always paranoid, was right to fear the possibility of Ukraine slipping out of Soviet control. His collectivization which did its part in the rapid industrialization of the USSR did nothing for the people of Ukraine but cause a great famine of unparalleled proportions. The Ukrainian people had been reduced to starving animals willing to cannibalize their own children in order to survive. Instead of ordering the cessation of the grain confiscations to improve these conditions, Stalin launches a campaign of even greater repression and brutality against the Ukrainians under the guise of stamping out an almost non-existent enemy, the "kulaks". These minority landowning peasants did not make a difference in the grander scheme of things but Stalin would make a convenient scapegoat out of them. The commissars aside from continuing the confiscation of Ukraine's hardearned grain took the lead in executing Stalin's deadly orders in wiping out all opposition, real or imagined. Innocent people were shot dead under the suspicion of being kulaks or of aiding the kulaks. A parallel situation occurred in the neighboring SSR of Kazakhstan where thousands starved to death under similar circumstances.
The spirit of rebellion was certainly instilled in the Ukrainian and Kazakh peoples but how could they rebel if they had nothing? Not even the fruit of their harvests. This is where the Baron would step in. The Soviet famine first came to his attention when several Soviet refugees made their way into Mongolia asking for food. They were captured by the Enlightenment Ministry and propped up as victims of Bolshevik oppression. They told of the atrocities committed by the Stalinist regime as if atrocities of the same degree were unheard of in the Baron's realm.
Seeing how easily these countries could be snatched from Stalin, the Baron conceived a plan of expanding his influence to Ukraine and Soviet Central Asia by taking advantage of the worsening conditions. His initial idea was that before he could prevail over the Soviets in a war between armies, he had to first defeat them in the war between ideas. He needed an ideology just as powerful, just as hateful and just as inspiring as Bolshevism but he figured that his brand of Buddhism, Military Buddhism, no matter how useful and enlightening it was, would not captivate the hearts and minds of the Ukrainian people. So, for this he approached a Ukrainian priest, who resided within the FER, known for his anti-Soviet Ukrainian religious-nationalist demagoguery. His name was Father Dimitry Svaroslav. He fled eastward during the revolution and spoke out against the Soviet regime from his home in Vladivostok. He was different from the many other White emigres who did the same in that he combined extreme nationalism with radical religious fervor. He called Ukrainian victims of Soviet oppression, "martyrs", Stalin the "Antichrist" and spoke of "national salvation for the Ukranian people". The Baron was interested with his ideas mostly because of how hateful and radical they sounded when Svarloslav spoke of them. He commissioned the self-proclaimed fifty-three year old "Patriarch of all Ukraine" to write a treatise about his ideas.
While the Patriarch was busy writing, in the summer of that year, the Baron set about establishing the OMB's first foreign intelligence units within the Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Their primary orders were to cause chaos and destruction. Initially, they started aiding the commissars in confiscating grain to help worsen and make more desperate the Ukrainian and Kazakh populations. To further this goal, they started burning the grain and the "kolkhoz" or collective farms. This angered both the people and the commissars with each side blaming the other. Minor operations included the defacement of Soviet statues and iconography. Images of Lenin and Stalin were brought down and scarred. Within the first few weeks of this, the commissars made their reprisals even worse. The mass killings quadrupled in quantity and intensity. Soon, the fires expanded to the forests and the villages and the cities setting the Ukraine and Kazakhstan ablaze.
Amidst the growing chaos, copies of the Patriarch's finished treatise, Dreams of St. Anthony or at least very simplified versions and pieces of it began circulation among the common Ukrainian people via the OMB. The beautiful vision of a "Ukraine freed from Communism" that it described served to embolden the hatred Ukrainians felt toward Stalin, whom the book called with certainty, the "Antichrist". Aside from painting a glorious picture of post-Soviet Ukraine and demonizing Stalin, the treatise told its readers that Ukraine's liberation was at hand and that it would happen within their lifetimes as God willed it. For the Kazakhs, similar propaganda was circulated, the only difference was that it was Islamic in nature. Everyone caught with these texts were arrested and shot for possessing kulak propaganda. It was ignorant of the Soviets to think that they were still facing the "kulak threat" but this is what Stalin thought and anything Stalin thinks is truth and law. Little did the commissars know that their actions would only feed their victims' desire for vengeance. The confiscation of the treatise did not stop the spread of its ideas. Slogans like "Stalin is the Antichrist" and "God Will Save Us" was painted in red on every city street and village square. The message was clear and visible. The will and motivation was burned onto the people's hearts and minds. The Baron had won his war of ideas. All they needed now were the guns...
Meanwhile in Japan, the Depression had taken its toll on the Japanese people. They had been radicalized by the hard times and saw the quasi-fascist methods of the Kwantung Army in running things in the economically prosperous Northern Empire (Sternbergia & Korea) as the way to go. The Kodoha, the ultranationalist faction within the Kwantung Army used this popular support to stage a coup d'etat in what would be known as the May 15th incident. The coup began at dawn in Tokyo as radical Army cadets stormed major government buildings including the Diet. They were reinforced by radical navy officers soon after. Liberal anti-militarist Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated along with several of his political colleagues and aides as they tried to exit the Prime Minister's Office Building. Following this, members of the Kodoha within the high echelons of the Military order their forces to participate in the coup, spreading the rebellion to other Japanese cities. Saito Makoto becomes Prime Minister with the consent of Prince Saionji in the hopes of avoiding a Military takeover but this backfires as the new Prime Minister is coerced by the rebellious officers into issuing a statement declaring the government's complete and total support for the military, reducing him to a puppet Prime Minister. Members of the rival Toseiha faction, which also promotes military rule, join with the Kodoha in executing the coup adding a new pool of manpower to enforce the it. Opposition government ministers are arrested. The end of the day marks the beginning of the Japanese military dictatorship.
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I just thought I'd post this great colored photograph of him along with an interesting passage from the book, Beasts, Men and Gods.
"In Asia there will be a great State from the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the shore of the Volga. The wise religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the west. It will be the victory of the spirit. A conqueror and leader will appear stronger and more stalwart than Jenghiz Khan and Ugadai. He will be more clever and more merciful than Sultan Baber and he will keep power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean capital, shall emerge the King of the World."
- The Baron Ungern von Sternberg from Beasts, Men and Gods (1921)
That's the Baron!
And before I continue, can anyone comment some more about the TL? I wanna know what people think about the scenarios unfolding here? Comments? Thoughts? Constructive criticism or anything like that? Please post them!
Vault-Scope
Banned
That's the Baron!
And before I continue, can anyone comment some more about the TL? I wanna know what people think about the scenarios unfolding here? Comments? Thoughts? Constructive criticism or anything like that? Please post them!
I read that in 1934 Japan considered launching a military attack against the soviet-union, by fears of Stalin´s industrialisation policies.
Poland could very well join such an attack(unless military governement has been butterflied away).
In OTL 1934 peace was being signed with Germany, Pildusky was still alive and would force the Polish military to be more reasonable.
Members of the polish intel services worked with Japanes until the end of the war...
So, based on that, I could conjure an anti-Soviet alliance consisting of the Baron's forces, Japan and Poland to declare war and invade the USSR on all sides. What do you think?
Vault-Scope
Banned
If there is going to be a war where Sternegia gains territories over the soviet-union, instead of falling, it would be that.
The butterfly effect might change situation on both sides, dates would not be exactly the same. Between 32 & 34, there is 33.
Vault-Scope
Banned
This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Coup
A similar event could lead to a polish governement with better preparations for war (probably more nationalistic/militaristic than in OTL).
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It isn't butterflied away ITTL and Pilsudski still took power. What would that mean?
I've already written something with Poland in it so the credit goes to you, Vault-Scope for the Polish involvement. Thanks!
Thanks for the interest!
The Baron and The Poles
1932 (Cont.) – The Baron’s desire for an effective war plan to bring down the Soviet Union led him to conduct secret negotiations with Poland. Poland who shares its eastern frontier with Soviet Russia and who once fought off a Soviet invasion in the early 20’s, made it an ideal European ally. The Foreign Affairs Ministry invited a delegation of Polish Diplomats to Urga where they met the Baron himself along with a several representatives from Japan. He spoke about the possibility of conducting “joint military action in containing Soviet influence”. “An invasion?” one of the Poles asked. “Yes”, the Baron retorted. After being given some time to talk amongst themselves, the Poles could not come up with a definitive answer for the Baron’s offer. They flew back to Poland the next day with a secret briefcase the Baron told them “to give to whoever was in charge of the Army”. The briefcase that contained the “von Sternberg Memo” was opened in front of several military and civilian leaders, among which were President Ignacy Moscicki, Prime Minister Alexander Mrystor, General-Inspector Joseph Pilsudski and another senior military leader, Edward Rydz-Smigly. The Baron’s habit of sending top secret plans to other peoples’ armies proved to be a good one as in this case like in the last, Polish leadership showed interest and sent Rydz-Smigly himself to Urga for further negotiations.
The talks took place in a yurt in the Mongolian desert several miles outside Urga. The Baron made bold promises of “total victory” and “an end to Soviet tyranny”. “History will remember us and thank us for eradicating Revolution in its present form”, the Baron declared. “All this, only if you will join our noble cause and accomplish your part”. “Enough of all this ideological discourse” Rydz-Smigly answered. “This cause is noble, we understand, any cause against the interests of Russia is a noble one!” The two parties laughed. “Expound on your actual military strategy! That is what we came here to hear. We want to know if this is feasible enough for us to pull off!”. “Forgive me!” the Baron exclaimed. “We ask Poland to invade from its Eastern borders and we shall join you from the West. The Red Army, busy stamping out revolt in the Ukraine and Central Asia will be caught in surprise.” “We shall invade from the West, the East and from inside”. “At that point, the whole affair would be but a good-spirited race to the Kremlin!” The Poles were thrown into silence until Rydz-Smigly asked “I beg your pardon, revolt in the Ukraine?” “Mr. Rydz-Smigly, are any of your men, Soviet spies?” “No!” the Pole responded slightly angrily. The Baron explained the OMB’s activity in the southern SSR’s and how it would lead full-fledged rebellion in a matter of no time.
The Poles came home convinced. Pilsudski, upon hearing of the “Triple Invasion Plan” and the impeding revolt in the southern SSR’s, exclaimed “Alas, I shall live to see the fall of Russia and Poland shall be an instrument!” “This Baron managed to accomplish in a few years what the entire Promtheist movement failed to do in a decade!” The approval of the General-Inspector was followed by everyone else’s, from the President to the Prime Minister to nearly everyone in the Military. It was official; Poland had joined the noble cause. All that was needed was the signing of a diplomatic agreement that would formalize the alliance. In Japan however, there was dispute about Poland. Several of Japan’s military leaders, because of ideological similarities, had hoped for an alliance with Germany where Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was quick on its path to power. Germany, being Poland’s continental rival would be alienated once the formal alliance is established. Another faction of the Military however pushed for the Polish alliance as they argued that this would be more realistic and beneficial. After days of dispute, Realpolitik had prevailed and the Tokyo Pact was signed in secret on October 5, 1933. Signatory states included; the Far Eastern Republic, Mongolia, Manchukuo, Japan and Poland. Articles of the Pact called for mutual defense efforts and strategic cooperation between signatory states.
Within the USSR, OMB activity had spread south to the Caucuses and the southernmost parts of Russia where anti-Soviet propaganda had most affected Muslim minorities like Chechens, Azeri and Kalymks. Once caught or arrested, OMB officers would admit to being agents of kulak paymasters, an effective tactic that left the Baron and his plans well out of Soviet suspicion. Also, supplies were sent in through the almost unguarded border with China instead of from the Baron’s territories, another tactic that helped shield the Baron’s involvement from the eyes of the GPU.
1932 (Cont.) – The Baron’s desire for an effective war plan to bring down the Soviet Union led him to conduct secret negotiations with Poland. Poland who shares its eastern frontier with Soviet Russia and who once fought off a Soviet invasion in the early 20’s, made it an ideal European ally. The Foreign Affairs Ministry invited a delegation of Polish Diplomats to Urga where they met the Baron himself along with a several representatives from Japan. He spoke about the possibility of conducting “joint military action in containing Soviet influence”. “An invasion?” one of the Poles asked. “Yes”, the Baron retorted. After being given some time to talk amongst themselves, the Poles could not come up with a definitive answer for the Baron’s offer. They flew back to Poland the next day with a secret briefcase the Baron told them “to give to whoever was in charge of the Army”. The briefcase that contained the “von Sternberg Memo” was opened in front of several military and civilian leaders, among which were President Ignacy Moscicki, Prime Minister Alexander Mrystor, General-Inspector Joseph Pilsudski and another senior military leader, Edward Rydz-Smigly. The Baron’s habit of sending top secret plans to other peoples’ armies proved to be a good one as in this case like in the last, Polish leadership showed interest and sent Rydz-Smigly himself to Urga for further negotiations.
The talks took place in a yurt in the Mongolian desert several miles outside Urga. The Baron made bold promises of “total victory” and “an end to Soviet tyranny”. “History will remember us and thank us for eradicating Revolution in its present form”, the Baron declared. “All this, only if you will join our noble cause and accomplish your part”. “Enough of all this ideological discourse” Rydz-Smigly answered. “This cause is noble, we understand, any cause against the interests of Russia is a noble one!” The two parties laughed. “Expound on your actual military strategy! That is what we came here to hear. We want to know if this is feasible enough for us to pull off!”. “Forgive me!” the Baron exclaimed. “We ask Poland to invade from its Eastern borders and we shall join you from the West. The Red Army, busy stamping out revolt in the Ukraine and Central Asia will be caught in surprise.” “We shall invade from the West, the East and from inside”. “At that point, the whole affair would be but a good-spirited race to the Kremlin!” The Poles were thrown into silence until Rydz-Smigly asked “I beg your pardon, revolt in the Ukraine?” “Mr. Rydz-Smigly, are any of your men, Soviet spies?” “No!” the Pole responded slightly angrily. The Baron explained the OMB’s activity in the southern SSR’s and how it would lead full-fledged rebellion in a matter of no time.
The Poles came home convinced. Pilsudski, upon hearing of the “Triple Invasion Plan” and the impeding revolt in the southern SSR’s, exclaimed “Alas, I shall live to see the fall of Russia and Poland shall be an instrument!” “This Baron managed to accomplish in a few years what the entire Promtheist movement failed to do in a decade!” The approval of the General-Inspector was followed by everyone else’s, from the President to the Prime Minister to nearly everyone in the Military. It was official; Poland had joined the noble cause. All that was needed was the signing of a diplomatic agreement that would formalize the alliance. In Japan however, there was dispute about Poland. Several of Japan’s military leaders, because of ideological similarities, had hoped for an alliance with Germany where Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party was quick on its path to power. Germany, being Poland’s continental rival would be alienated once the formal alliance is established. Another faction of the Military however pushed for the Polish alliance as they argued that this would be more realistic and beneficial. After days of dispute, Realpolitik had prevailed and the Tokyo Pact was signed in secret on October 5, 1933. Signatory states included; the Far Eastern Republic, Mongolia, Manchukuo, Japan and Poland. Articles of the Pact called for mutual defense efforts and strategic cooperation between signatory states.
Within the USSR, OMB activity had spread south to the Caucuses and the southernmost parts of Russia where anti-Soviet propaganda had most affected Muslim minorities like Chechens, Azeri and Kalymks. Once caught or arrested, OMB officers would admit to being agents of kulak paymasters, an effective tactic that left the Baron and his plans well out of Soviet suspicion. Also, supplies were sent in through the almost unguarded border with China instead of from the Baron’s territories, another tactic that helped shield the Baron’s involvement from the eyes of the GPU.
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The one problem with this timeline is that the leaders of Soviet Russia seem monumentally stupid. Considering the size of their population/army/industry compared to Sternberg's Khanate, it would be a stunning lack of foresight for them to ignore him or allow him to continue unmolested.
Secondly, I find it hard that Stalin would not find out about the Bloody Baron's attempts to overthrow him. This is severely underestimating the NVKD, and their abilities.
I like to see some feedback from the Russian members about this.
Thirdly, can I have a map?
Secondly, I find it hard that Stalin would not find out about the Bloody Baron's attempts to overthrow him. This is severely underestimating the NVKD, and their abilities.
I like to see some feedback from the Russian members about this.
Thirdly, can I have a map?