Let me guess. Luigi Cadorna REALLY wants another battle of the Isonzo, because if he shoots enough of his own men surely THIS time the remainder will be inspired to victory?
The Fire Never Dies, Part II: The Red Colossus
- Thread starter Meshakhad
- Start date
Luigi Cadorna tries to cross the tiber instead, still loses a battle about it
american butterflies stronk?
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Whilst I understand butterflies happen a lot I admit I am somewhat skeptical/curious on why he didn't start moving right unlike OTL considering IOTL he literally got kicked out of the PSI/Socialist Party of Italy for supporting Italy joining the war on the side of the Entente in 1914 out of nationalist sentiments which was when he began to move right as I understand the matter. So I would consider it more likely he'd end up drifting towards the right even with a Syndicalist/Deleon-Marxist dominated left as his rightward swing was born out of Nationalism well before the Russian Revolution.
Emilio de Bono was my guess as he was a WW1-era Italian general who was a prominent PNF leader.
"The die is cast!" General Cadorna screams, reaching for the die so he can have another crack at it.
I'm guessing it's going to be a combination of Imperial Germany pursuing a more pacifistic approach in the foreign policy department, controlling the new vassals in Eastern Europes, and dealing with increasing democratization at home. I imagine it'll be similar to the interwar period the UK went through after WW1.
I imagine that the falangists in Spain will take some inspiration from the farce on Rome and the attempted rise of fascism but decide to take power through more democratic means rather trying to coup the government. I could also see the Carlists throwing themselves in with the Falangists ala the conservatives in Germany cynically aligning themselves with the Nazis before Hitler purged them
Given that a post in the previous thread talked about the red scare in Europe I could imagine the early signs of authortarianism in France and Britain come from red scare-esque legislations. Not only that but I'm also theorizing that public discontent in the loss of the war and falangism emerging in Spain might make it more acceptable in the public's eyes. In Britain's case I could see the war of Irish independence playing a role as, in OTL the British employed the Black and Tans for the RIC during the war with them gaining a reputation for brutality and launching reprisal attacks against Irish civilians (a prominent example was Bloody Sunday). I could see the far right in Britian advocating for a similar group on the home soil to deal with "discontentment."
Ah I see Russia is going to go through its Weimar era.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say various stages of being on fire after WW1 and the emergence of the ASU. I kind of wonder how Pan Arabism is going to develop ITTL.
This is the one I'm most looking forward to as someone who's studied Latin American history. I know an anarchist Brazil has been mentioned before but if any Latin American nation is going to be overthrown in the early years of the 1920s it'd probably be Argentina from a bigger version of the Patagonia Rebelde. Plus I am excited to see the Latin American right's reaction to their biggest patron suddenly becoming socialist.
Well I have some ideas on that. Patagonia Rebelde will be really interesting to see play out (if it will), but saying that 1920's Brazil had a lower chance of being overthrown is something I disagree. Other than the 1917 general strike and the 1918 Anarchist revolt, the 1920's in Brazil were plagued by rebellions by the lower levels of the Army, the Tenentista Movement, which was generally a mixed bag. One of their leaders (Isidoro Dias Lopes) said something of the movement not being particularly ideological then, and that they could've easily become communists or other such things (Luiz Carlos Prestes in fact did, and Miguel Costa was in the ALN). I think it would be interesting to see the anarchist movement being galvanized by Makhno's presence in Brazil and the maybe radicalization of the Tenentes into the movement as well.
I assume we're in for an equivalent of the Pacific War between America and British aligned Japan. The ultimate victor of that war is obvious but I'm curious what the ASU would do with Taiwan and any other offshore Chinese territory Japan was occupying by the time it surrendered.
Maybe we get some sort of incredibly rump 'Socialist Republic of China' on Taiwan dominated by KMT exiles because irony.
Unrelated, but on the popular culture side of things....
Hmm, having recently watched Nosferatu for the first time, that got me thinking that vampire movies would probably be quite popular for horror in the ASU, even more so then in OTL.
With the literary and then film vampire genre being dominated by villainous decadent murderous parasitic aristocrats, it would probably have some appeal to a socialist audience and reflect some general societal anxieties in regards to Britain and later Germany.
Maybe we get some sort of incredibly rump 'Socialist Republic of China' on Taiwan dominated by KMT exiles because irony.
Unrelated, but on the popular culture side of things....
Hmm, having recently watched Nosferatu for the first time, that got me thinking that vampire movies would probably be quite popular for horror in the ASU, even more so then in OTL.
With the literary and then film vampire genre being dominated by villainous decadent murderous parasitic aristocrats, it would probably have some appeal to a socialist audience and reflect some general societal anxieties in regards to Britain and later Germany.
On the topic of movies: One of the this about this timeline I've (somehow) become fixated on is... What would be this timeline's equivalent to the James Bond series, and just hit me. Otto Skorzeny, The Most Dangerous Man In Europe.
I think that there was some discussion in the previous thread about the Tenentista movement being the ones to overthrow Brazil's government. Makhno in Brazil could lead to some interesting implications regarding Latin America's anarchist movement as well as international relations in general. How would the ASU react to an anarchist state in South America? How would the world perceive Brazil's revolution?
Vampires have kind of always been depicted as rich aristocrats sucking the blood out of working folk (Dracula was literally living in a castle when we first see him and he and his brides frequently preyed upon the locals) so I think it wouldn't take much changing for it to appeal to socialist audiences (all they'd have to do was style the vampires as German Junkers or British nobles).
I think the equivalent of a James Bond series ITTL would probably involve someone who's heavily based upon Otto Skorzeny but a completely fictional character. Although you gave me a funny picture of Otto Skorzeny fighting Goldfinger.
I seem to remember that in the part 1, the Carlists tried to conspire with the Central Powers to coup the government and bring Spain into the war on the side of the Central Powers. If I'm remembering correctly, this would effectively serve to neuter the Carlists, which would strengthen the Falangists by allowing them to attract the support of more of the Carlists' would-be supporters.
The fact that the dominant far-right ideology is ITTL referred to as "Falangism" as opposed to "Fascism" is a very strong indicator that it first takes root in Spain. My personal theory is that it is led, at least initially, by Primo de Rivera, especially as I seem to recall that ITTL he was the one who exposed the Carlist Zimmerman Scheme, thus boosting his prestige and placing him in a better position to seize power. The problem is that, IOTL, the ideology of Primo de Rivera's military dictatorship was a vague mixture of monarchism, political Catholicism and authoritarian anti-communism, and was never backed up by a mass movement the same way that OTL fascist regimes were, and how I would imagine TTL Falangist regimes to be. Furthermore, although it was Primo de Rivera's son Jose Antonio who became the main theoretician behind OTL Falangism, IOTL he only went into politics after his father's death, initially with the sole aim of defending his legacy. I'm curious to know how Falangism develops differently ITTL, and also how different it ends up being both from OTL fascism and the OTL Fracoist regime that ruled Spain for much of the 20th Century.
Tbh, as far as I can gather, in the immediate postwar era, despite the rabid ultranationalism and irridentism exhibited by the Fascist movement from its earliest days, the Fascist party actually had some surprisingly progressive policies. Just take a look at the Wikipedia article on the Fascist manifesto of 1919:
These are the sorts of policies that one would expect to find from a leftist political movement, not from one whose name would go on to be used to refer to totalitarian conservative ultranationalism more generally. IMO it is not unrealistic that the success of the Second American Revolution could have convinced the fascists to double down on their economic and social radicalism, thus preventing them from drifting to the right.
Of course, this would result in the Fascist movement becoming completely unrecognisable in the interwar era, as instead of being in charge of a totalitarian, reactionary one-party state, they remain a strongly nationalist yet broadly progressive movement within a multiparty democracy. I'm curious to know what happens to them during and after the war. If Italy ever gets occupied by the Falangists like France IOTL, then I could see the fascists undergoing the same fate as OTL's "neosocialists" in France. Essentially, these were members of the SFIO who broke away in the 1930s due to their embrace of corporatism and class collaborationism, only to mostly become collaborators with the Vichy Regime, leading to them being broadly discredited after the war.
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Well, no the original folkloric vampires of the Eastern Europe peasantry have little to deal with a nobility in particular (interesting video on that if you're curious).
Interestingly the perhaps first literary vampire was Lord Ruthven, who was of course a member of the British aristocracy.
...I'm now imagining this world's American equivalent of Nosferatu in particular being, still more or less an than unauthorized adaptation of Dracula, but with the setting moved from Transylvania to rural Britain and with 'Ruthven' in place of Dracula.
Maybe the original idea of vampirism paralleling homosexuality in Dracula and Carmilla will go out of fashion as LGBT, or rather GSM rights advance in the ASU.
Actually no. That war would be very much up in the air for results.
The IJN were premier experts at night fighting and unlike OTL, they will more than likely have radar from the word "go" thanks to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance holding strong. Furthermore Japan also has the Philippines which has oil reserves that haven't peaked (Japan's natural fields peaked in the 1880s-1890s) and in fact haven't been tapped but are known about in the time period - furthermore changes to Korea will be happening and Korea has an enormous pool of its own resources to consider. Iron and Copper mostly for easily accessibles but its there. Hell at Britain's urging, Japan might very well launch a Megaproject in Korea and to a lesser extent the Philippines to industrialize those areas to take advantage of said wealth.
Japan ITTL is very much a economic powerhouse that while it pales in comparison to the ASU, is very much way more capable than OTL (Japan OTL had about as much resources as Romania, with Korea industrialized and modernized that becomes Hungry, with the Philippines its probably pretty close to Italy) and with the WNT being the farce that is for restraining capital ship construction, I assure that the IJN will have a very impressive capital ship fleet when it comes to Battleships.
Actually, that reminds me. I need to get to work on hammering out what the Red Navy more than likely looks like by the end of the 1930s.
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Plus, as long as Japan play it smart and doesn't get the ASU involved, its survival may still stand strong.
And I think the ASU isn't going to go into a war to 'preserve colonial territories'
Yeah and the ASU doesn't have much of a reason to poke Japan actually either ITTL.
I can see Japan wishing to maximize the number of 16-inch guns at its disposal. This means that Design I probably gets chosen for the Kii class and Design I was absolutely bonkers, with an ABXY configuration mounting quadruple turrets for 41cm/50 caliber guns plus naturally the 14cm guns.
Well if Japan is warring with China then that might even things out a bit as they'll have to invest more resources afterall this China is unlikely to be the war torn mess even if it's a lot smaller. Although the ASU will always have to worry about Canada and the British navy which will reduce the force it needs to fight Japan.
Frankly, I expect Canada to declare Neutrality in World War II - they are not stupid after all.
The Royal Navy is another matter entirely and frankly, I expect the ASU to be okay at Night Fighting, but nowhere near as good as the Royal Navy or Imperial Japanese Navies.