20th Century Khan - A Timeline!

[Herr Frage]

I am quite enjoying this.

Aside from my monarchist leanings I approve of your unorthodoxy. Too often even alternate historians seem to think history must floow certain trends(grumbles at the thought of the Battle of Pittsburgh). However history is composed of so many factors that a single chane can drtastically alter the course of destiny.

You have done so! Russia has fallen to countrerevolution, Poland is a great power, Japan is prospering, communism has been replaced with Christian Fundamentalism in Ukraine, and a violent Buhdist sect running amok in Asia. I cannot bwelieve it took me so long to find this.

Keep up the good work. And kindly pin the Americans ears back . . . and rip them their bloody republican heads!

 

[Vault-Scope]

No more comments? What does everybody think of the TL so far?

Nice. One problem hovewer is the speed at which all of this happen, even considering that ITTL soviet-union would be far "shorter" without the far east.
In 33, roads where not very good and railways rare, a number of soldiers would have to go by foot.
After months of mobilisation, the seizure of large cities like Moscow and Leningrad would be extremely difficult.
The most likely possibility, all these defeats would lead to a coup against Stalin and that in turn would cause the governement/army rats to leave the shipe(events which had been avoided in OTL by Stalin´s purges) + widpread popular unrest caused by the lack of food supplies.
Using the promise of power, the "rats" could be convinced to surrender Moscow without a fight.

 

[The Federalist]

I am quite enjoying this.

Thank you!

Nice. One problem hovewer is the speed at which all of this happen, even considering that ITTL soviet-union would be far "shorter" without the far east.
In 33, roads where not very good and railways rare, a number of soldiers would have to go by foot.
After months of mobilisation, the seizure of large cities like Moscow and Leningrad would be extremely difficult.
The most likely possibility, all these defeats would lead to a coup against Stalin and that in turn would cause the governement/army rats to leave the shipe(events which had been avoided in OTL by Stalin´s purges) + widpread popular unrest caused by the lack of food supplies.
Using the promise of power, the "rats" could be convinced to surrender Moscow without a fight.

I think the Cossack and peasant rebellions and the large scale defections by the RLA and ULA were enough. That plus the air superiority of the Japanese and remember Moscow surrendered not because of a military defeat but because of a coup of Red Army cadets.

 

[Vault-Scope]

Thank you!



I think the Cossack and peasant rebellions and the large scale defections by the RLA and ULA were enough. That plus the air superiority of the Japanese and remember Moscow surrendered not because of a military defeat but because of a coup of Red Army cadets.

So, what happens now? What will Japan do?

 

[The Federalist]

So, what happens now? What will Japan do?

Well, aside from fulfilling the naval assistance agreement, they're gonna gear up for their long-awaited war with China.

 

[Vault-Scope]

Well, aside from fulfilling the naval assistance agreement, they're gonna gear up for their long-awaited war with China.

Excelllent!

 

[Vault-Scope]

Bumpov!

Will Poland attempt to annexe the Holy Patriarchate of Ukraine once their puppet governements and armies are organised enought ??

The Baron would most probably be able to take control over western China, ensuring that Japanes invasion doesn´t bogue down as in OTL.

 

[The Federalist]

Will Poland attempt to annexe the Holy Patriarchate of Ukraine once their puppet governements and armies are organised enought ??

The Baron would most probably be able to take control over western China, ensuring that Japanes invasion doesn´t bogue down as in OTL.

I'm not sure what will happen in Europe with Poland, just know that Nazi Germany will soon enter the world stage.

 

[The Federalist]

The Hidden Kingdom of Sternbergia

I realized that I've been posting about wars and politics and nothing else, leaving no room for the little things, so here is an in-world tidbit about Sternbergia;

***

The Hidden Kingdom of Sternbergia by Avery Steelton
New York Times article from December 15, 1933

In the East, a great empire is being forged; one that is shard between the nations of Russia and Japan but its center is not in the Kremlins of Moscow or St. Petersburg or in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. Its center lies in the vast, desolate, snowy plains of Western Siberia, in a large expanse of land called “Sternbergia”. The name “Sternbergia” does not function as the official name of any state or administrative region, it is a name that exists only in the business journals of Tokyo and Vladivostok and in the busy discussions overheard from the executive boardrooms of Japan’s top conglomerates. Its vastness is not contained within the borders of any single state. In totality, it occupies the lands of three countries, Russia, Mongolia and Manchuria. Although, politically united into the international entity known as the “Tokyo Pact”, enough diversity exists between these countries to call Sternbergia “vast” both geographically and socio-culturally. It is claimed to be responsible for 60% of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the Eastern Tokyo Pact nations, although there is a possibility that these numbers have been exaggerated; all would agree that Sternbergia is on the rise if not already on top.

The capital of the hidden kingdom cannot be attributed to a single city as each of its major cities play an equally significant role. Vladivostok, once the capital of the now defunct Far Eastern Republic is its main port as a host of merchant ships dock in its harbors everyday, shipping in and out its resources of Sternbergia. Because of this, Vladivostok is called Sternbergia’s gateway to the world. The city is also home to a large Japanese Naval presence. Urga, the capital of Mongolia is the closest it has to political and military center as this is the official residence of the illustrious Baron von Sternberg, the founding father of and namesake of Sternbergia, and the man who is acknowledged as its leader. Another important center is Harbin, the Manchurian capital. This is the administrative center of Manchuria and where the residence of the “President of the Northeastern Railway” lies, thus the place where all of the resource extraction operations thought the mineral wealthy land is controlled from. The city of Chita, known to the citizens of Siberia as being the battleground where Bolshevik leader, Leon Trotsky was captured in 1924 is called “Sternbergia’s second city”. Wherever the “first city” of Sternbergia is, Chita is second to it, but this secondary status may end soon as Chita is one of Sternbergia’s fastest growing cities with an industrial base rising at about 44% a year, according to the Tokyo Market Journal. In all, these cities help form the nucleolus of a healthy industrial heartland. Sternbergia has proved that it is such with its role in the White Russian and Japanese victories in the Mongolian and Manchurian wars of 1923 and ’31 respectively, in which it had churned out large amounts of guns, rifles, tanks and aircrafts to the fulfillment or sometimes overfulfillment of war quotas. Something, Sternbergia prides itself in is its ability to multiply by ten times, the rate of it productivity during what its leadership calls “wartime pace”.

Sternbergia’s vast enterprises are brought together by a railway system, colloquially referred to as the “Trans-Sternbergia Railway” but officially known as the Northeastern Railway. Centered, in the city of Harbin, Manchuria, it has become one of Sternbergia’s biggest corporations, aside from providing almost all of Sternbergia’s rail transportation; it owns at least 57 smaller subsidiary companies that operate in both Sternbergia and Japan. Other Japanese business giants that operate in Sternbergia include; the Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sanwa and Fuyo corporations. All of these companies, which basically form the bulk of Japan’s economic power, experienced a period of heavy outsourcing in the late 1920’s, when Sternbergia was undergoing its formative and early expansion phases. Because of the diversity of factions, involved in the formation of Sternbergia, an equally diverse array of products has formed its main exports list: everything from military hardware for Japan’s expansionistic army to steel, automobiles, chemicals, oil and appliances for the civilian populations of Russia, Japan, China and any other nation that wishes to purchase these products that are always in good supply, although that last commodity, under an official decree from the Russian Oil Ministry, is reserved almost exclusively to the Japanese Military with only a little percentage of it going into civilian use.

The towering industrial edifices of Sternbergia, which have been called “genuine physical manifestations of Russo-Japanese power” by a visiting Chinese diplomat, however, are nothing without the massive ocean of Korean slave labor that powers it. Brought to Sternbergia by the orders of their Japanese overlords after a clause in the Second Chita Agreement of 1924, the document credited with the creation of Sternbergia, called for a new caste of virtual slaves to provide a permanent source of unpaid labor for the upcoming “Japanese Industrial Expansion Program”, these Koreans work nonstop, twelve to fourteen hours a day, amidst the pipes, furnaces, assembly lines and conveyor belts that run through Sternbergia’s dark, murky and little seen surface. The lives of these slaves operate on a rigorous daily schedule developed and imposed upon them by the entity known to them only as the “Ministry”. The Ministry of Labor is its official name, originally just a departmental division of the Far Eastern Republic, it has grown into powerful multinational corporation-like entity. The main reason for this growth is its primary role of managing Sternbergia’s slave pool. As Sternbergia grew out of the FER’s borders, so did the Ministry’s reach and influence.

If these Koreans are the slave caste, the OMB-LED is the slave-driver caste. The Order of Military Buddhist’s Labor Enforcement Division is known for its ruthless enforcement of the Ministry’s will. To enforce this will, each officer carries a handgun and a crude wooden baton, which can be likened to the whip of their ancient slave driver predecessors. These thugs, like the rest of their fellow secret policeman in the much larger organization they belong to, the OMB, know no mercy or restraint when it comes to dealing with disobedient slaves as they have proved in the reprisals they unleashed after crushing a series of slave revolts in the early twenties. After the executions of at least six hundred Koreans, there have been no more organized slave revolts.

Paid only with the permission to eat the little scraps of food they are fed with, drink the rationed water bottles they are supplied with and live, it is a certainty that these Korean slave workers live the hopeless, hellish and miserable existence every slave has ever had but for all the tyranny imposed on them, they do enjoy some little form of freedom that may seem small and insignificant to them compared to the heavy backbreaking work they have to perform everyday. It is the freedom to speak in their language, celebrate their holidays and continue their culture, one that is being driven to extinction back home. In occupied Korea, all forms of Korean culture and language are forbidden under the Japanese policy of forced “Japanization” or as they call it “Cultural Realignment”, this policy which if continued and fulfilled would mean the end of the Korean and culture and its replacement by the Japanese one. The future of Sternbergia is great and prosperous but for the people who work there, there is only darkness and despair. The only thing they can hope for is sweeping reforms in the governments of Urga and Tokyo, something very unlikely unless the world opens its eyes to what is going on in that seemingly “faraway” part of the world and uses the combined weight of diplomatic pressure from all free nations to help instigate the change that these slaves so desperately need.

***

Please comment!
​

 

[Vault-Scope]

At last, the Baron´s light is uppon us, once more!


With bolchevism ended, Japanes could well decide to deport the bulke of korean piopulation westward, to leave more place for Japanes settlers...

 

[The Federalist]

At last, the Baron´s light is uppon us, once more!


With bolchevism ended, Japanes could well decide to deport the bulke of korean piopulation westward, to leave more place for Japanes settlers...

Maybe not because Sternbergia is already too well established at this point and Western Siberia isn't a pretty good place to settle.

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

I'm not sure what will happen in Europe with Poland, just know that Nazi Germany will soon enter the world stage.

Poland will end as the european version of TTL Korea, enslaved and assimilated by the stronger neighbor.

Western Siberia isn't a pretty good place to settle.

No, quite the opposite is true.
Millions of people (some of them were my ancestors) settles in this virgin land in IOTL.

The towering industrial edifices of Sternbergia, which have been called “genuine physical manifestations of Russo-Japanese power” by a visiting Chinese diplomat, however, are nothing without the massive ocean of Korean slave labor that powers it. Brought to Sternbergia by the orders of their Japanese overlords after a clause in the Second Chita Agreement of 1924, the document credited with the creation of Sternbergia, called for a new caste of virtual slaves to provide a permanent source of unpaid labor for the upcoming “Japanese Industrial Expansion Program”, these Koreans work nonstop, twelve to fourteen hours a day, amidst the pipes, furnaces, assembly lines and conveyor belts that run through Sternbergia’s dark, murky and little seen surface. The lives of these slaves operate on a rigorous daily schedule developed and imposed upon them by the entity known to them only as the “Ministry”. The Ministry of Labor is its official name, originally just a departmental division of the Far Eastern Republic, it has grown into powerful multinational corporation-like entity. The main reason for this growth is its primary role of managing Sternbergia’s slave pool. As Sternbergia grew out of the FER’s borders, so did the Ministry’s reach and influence.​

Paid only with the permission to eat the little scraps of food they are fed with, drink the rationed water bottles they are supplied with and live, it is a certainty that these Korean slave workers live the hopeless, hellish and miserable existence every slave has ever had but for all the tyranny imposed on them, they do enjoy some little form of freedom that may seem small and insignificant to them compared to the heavy backbreaking work they have to perform everyday. It is the freedom to speak in their language, celebrate their holidays and continue their culture, one that is being driven to extinction back home. In occupied Korea, all forms of Korean culture and language are forbidden under the Japanese policy of forced “Japanization” or as they call it “Cultural Realignment”, this policy which if continued and fulfilled would mean the end of the Korean and culture and its replacement by the Japanese one. The future of Sternbergia is great and prosperous but for the people who work there, there is only darkness and despair. The only thing they can hope for is sweeping reforms in the governments of Urga and Tokyo, something very unlikely unless the world opens its eyes to what is going on in that seemingly “faraway” part of the world and uses the combined weight of diplomatic pressure from all free nations to help instigate the change that these slaves so desperately need.

Sternbergia will need an replacement (chinese?) in the foreseeable future if the Nipponese Empire continue the "Cultural Realignment"-campaign.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Here are some items to consider for the ATL, based on items from OTL:

*Starting in 1937, Oil was discovered in a shallow field area in Tuymazinskoye in Siberia. In 1929, there was oil discovered in a similar fashion in Chusovskiye Gorodki, which was a large Siberian oil field found in shallow ground.

* Using the history of Saudi Arabia, consider the following dates for the history of Sternbergia:

-1938- The American and British controlled Sternbergian American/ British Oil Company (SABOC) is established in Vladivostok...

-11/1953- Roman Ugern von Sternberg dies. He is succeeded by his biological royal heir/son...

-1960 Sternbergia becomes a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)...

-11/1964- Royal heirs/brothers clash in a political coup, disrupting the power and oil flow in the region....

 

[The Federalist]

Poland will end as the european version of TTL Korea, enslaved and assimilated by the stronger neighbor.

I've just decided what's gonna happen to Poland and its not quite what you mentioned.

No, quite the opposite is true.
Millions of people (some of them were my ancestors) settles in this virgin land in IOTL.

OK but Sternbergia's edifices are still gonna be pretty hard to move.

Sternbergia will need an replacement (chinese?) in the foreseeable future if the Nipponese Empire continue the "Cultural Realignment"-campaign.

But the Korean culture is safe in Sternbergia.

 

[Herr Frage]

I've just decided what's gonna happen to Poland and its not quite what you mentioned.



OK but Sternbergia's edifices are still gonna be pretty hard to move.




But the Korean culture is safe in Sternbergia.

Yeah Poland is in a much stronger position this time around.

Why not build some new edifices?

Yeah, as safe as any culture where a bunch of bloodthirsty Buhdist monks(there is a phrase you do not hear too often) can kill you at a whim.

 

[The Federalist]

Why not build some new edifices?

Logistically and Financially, it's not as simple as it sounds.

Yeah, as safe as any culture where a bunch of bloodthirsty Buhdist monks(there is a phrase you do not hear too often) can kill you at a whim.

The Korean culture is safe, the Korean people however are not.

 

[Vault-Scope]

Maybe not because Sternbergia is already too well established at this point and Western Siberia isn't a pretty good place to settle.

I was rather thinking about the new territories available, central asia, caucase or even the Patriarchat of Ukraine.

 

[Grand Prince Paul II.]

I've just decided what's gonna happen to Poland and its not quite what you mentioned.

The Tokyo pact stays intact ?
I still hope that the more natural German-Sternbergian Alliance will be signed.

OK but Sternbergia's edifices are still gonna be pretty hard to move.

Logistically and Financially, it's not as simple as it sounds.

A ruthless man who ruled an realm which "claimed to be responsible for 60% of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the Eastern Tokyo Pact nations" can not transfer a mass of people?
Hardly believable.

But the Korean culture is safe in Sternbergia.

The Korean culture is safe, the Korean people however are not.

The korean high culture can not survive in the long run if their followers are treated like subhumans and Korea becomes japanese.

I was rather thinking about the new territories available, central asia, caucase or even the Patriarchat of Ukraine.

In short, the ITTL version of the Koryo-saram.

 

[The Federalist]

The Tokyo pact stays intact ?
I still hope that the more natural German-Sternbergian Alliance will be signed.

Maybe... or maybe not, you'll just have to wait and see.

A ruthless man who ruled an realm which "claimed to be responsible for 60% of the economic prosperity enjoyed by the Eastern Tokyo Pact nations" can not transfer a mass of people?
Hardly believable.

First of all, I wasn't talking about the people, I was talking about the factories but it doesn't matter because a better thing to do then to "move" Sternbergia is to expand it, bedsides the Japanese really want to settle in China not in Siberia even if it is pretty habitable.

 

[Mr_ Bondoc]

Here are some PODs based on OTL's history of Saudi Arabia, that might be appropriate for the history of Sternbergia:

1940-45: Sterbergia is on the Allied side during World War II, giving room for an US naval base in Vladivostok .

1951: A new agreement with SABO (Sternbergia American-British Oil Company), gives Sternbergia 50% of all earnings from the oil, as SABO starts paying tax to Sterbergia instead of to the US goverment.


1956: Loan of US$10 million is given to Japan after their assets are frozen in connection with the INdonesian Straits situation. After the British, French and Americans attack on Japan in October and November, Sternbergia reduced its economical and political relationsship to the three countries.

1958: Change in the constitutional construction, where the kings absolute power was reduced, and legislative and executive powers was transferred to the prime minister. A couple of months later a cabinet system was introduced.

1960: Sternbergia participates in the construction of OPEC in Baghdad, in order to help sustain international oil prices.

1962 October: Relations with Japan are severed after Japan and Sterbergia supported opposing parties in the Indochinese revolution. Sternbergia supported the Bao Dai government. The conflict went as far as to Japan bombing Sterbergian towns.

1963: Sternbergia mobilises its army after the deteriorated relations with Japan.

1967: Sterbergia expresses support for Japan, and even sends 20,000 soldiers to help in the war in Tibet. When later that year, Japan withdraws from Indochina, Sternbergia gave extensive help to Japan.

1970: Sterbergia recognises the government of Indochina, that now is made up of the party that was supported by Japan.

1973: Sternbergia plays a leading role in a oil boycott against those Western countries that supported Israel. This resulted in oil prices four times higher than earlier.

1974: Sterbergia takes over more of the control over SABO, and revenues increases greatly.


1979: With the signing of the Camp David agreement, Sternbergia cuts off its financial aid to China.

November 20 1979: Military coup attempt threatens to overthrow the government based on religious fundamentalist ideology, sparking international attention and concern

1980: Sterbergia takes full control over SABO.

August 2 1990: Sterbergia allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign troops (mainly American) to be stationed on their own soil.

1992: Constitutional changes, where a consultative council, is established, along with a bill of rights, and the rules of succession for the king.