Unification Timeline Notes

1919 - US Participation in the Great War

In this timeline, the second decade of the Twentieth Century sees America gradually drawn into European affairs, as several "false start" crises, which nearly lead to European war, bring attention to Europe and America realizes that it's interests are involved. The initiation of this war is not such a haphazard event in our timeline - the Central Powers are a fully functioning, explicit alliance system well before the war. After an incident in 1916, when it appeared that Britain and France might end up facing the Central Powers without Russian support, the United States entered into a defensive alliance to be activated in the case of aggression in Western Europe by the Central Powers. Support for this diplomatic move was difficult to raise, and the view of many was that this was simply a case of America "stepping in" to set things right. Now that the US pledged to resist Central Powers aggression, the situation would stabilize and the Central Powers would not be so foolish as to start a war (there was a widespread fear that Russia could no longer be counted upon to support the West effectively). American participation early in the war was fairly limited and controversial, but with increasing Central Powers success as the conflict went on, the US committed itself fully to the war.

1919 - 1923 - The Great War

The Great War of this timeline is rather different from that of our timeline. On the Allied side, the US is in the war from the start and has a significant impact when the going gets tough, but additionally, the situation in Russia has worsened. Italy is also a member of the Central Powers from the start. Technology is also somewhat more advanced, and in fact the British experiment with the use of tanks before the start of the war. By 1920, primitive tanks are in use by both sides, and in 1922 they are decisive. Our timeline's WWI was a textbook example of positional warfare - apart from the initial German advances, not much territory was exchanged on the Western Front. Allied attacks on the Ottoman Empire failed, and the German invasion of Russia resulted in a peace which concluded a failure of the German army to bring about a military conquest.

The war of this timeline is different - significantly more mobile from 1921 onward, and a war of actual military victories rather than attrition and failed offensives. The Allies gain decisive dominance of the seas fairly early on, and offensives against the Ottoman Empire succeed, but Russia collapses utterly and would have been conquered militarily by Germany had not the interim government surrendered. German forces made far more substantial inroads into France in this timeline, only to be met by an even more substantial counterattack by British and American forces. In this timeline, the Central Powers military is decisively crushed in the end, with much of Germany itself invaded. Imagine Plan 1919 on steroids, implemented by both sides.

This, of course, has various postwar effects. Casualty rates are actually rather lower than in OTL's WWI, since there is not nearly as much throwing of masses of troops against prepared defensive positions. Damage to western France and eastern Germany, however, is much higher since the war crosses over these areas. There is no perception that Germany was "cheated" out of victory - the general perception is that Germany was defeated due to allies which provided insufficient support, insufficient use of new technology such as tanks, and due to spending too much effort on Russia while a knockout blow built up in France. This lesson is applied to the future. On the Allied side, the war was won by the tank, using offensive power to crush through heavily fortified positions and open a hole for the infantry to pour through. Those who are guilty of fighting the last war, do so in terms of armored spearheads, rather than defensive fortifications - this timeline has no Maginot Line. There is a preponderance of heavy tanks and tank destroyers, to excess in many cases.

1935 - Unionism in the Interwar Period

The Unionist governments of Russia and Germany followed a strategy significantly different from that of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany in our own timeline. Russia during the time was characterized by industrialization, militarization, and reorganization. There were several periods of chaos, but Unionism arose following a near-complete collapse of the existing government, not by the carefully orchestrated coup of the Bolsheviks. There was no forced collectivisation, no significant campaign against the Kulaks, no Stalinist purges, less extreme industrialization. The Russian Unity is proportionally less industrialized than Stalin's USSR, but is more populous, more efficient, and rather better off (agricultural output, especially, is far higher). The military is smaller, but it's leadership quite competent.

After the rise of the Unionist government in Germany in 1935, Germany and Russia are natural allies. In fact, they are to an extent forced into each other's arms, due to significant opposition on the part of Western Europe to the penetration of Unionist ideology into Europe. The German Union executes an even greater economic and military turnaround than Nazi Germany, due to extensive Russian support in supplying resources and rebuilding a full modern military. Strategic goals also differ radically. While Russia's territorial ambitions are similar to those of our timeline, those of Germany turn west and south. It's goals are to export Unionism to Europe, to exert its dominance over the other powers, and to end the threat of increasing opposition from Britain and France. The government is actually much more conventional than that of Nazi Germany - its aims are initially more modest, though when it discovers that it is capable of gaining more than its leaders had imagined, the sky becomes the limit. The lessons of the last war have been taken fully into account - France must be seized rapidly before it can be reinforced, and the capacity must exist to invade Britain before the US can bring in sufficient force to make this impossible. Accordingly, both Germany and Russia emphasize the creation of surface navies and a sizeable air force, while the German army is not tremendously large, but utilizes Blitzkreig-style tactics and is mechanized to a unique degree (thanks in part to large numbers of Russian-built trucks and personnel carriers). When Japan enters into the alliance it is a stroke of luck - something to draw off Allied attention to their possessions in the Pacific, making the Unity attack in the West that much easier.

1943 - The Western Front

The battles on the Western Front were one of the greatest Unity successes of the war, and utilized strategic, tactical, and technological surprise to great effect. Despite somewhat greater French preparedness, the conquest of France is not much more difficult than in our timeline - the French heavy tanks and infantry columns are consistently outmanouvered by the far more mobile German forces, in a much more extensive, more mechanized version of Blitzkreig tactics than seen in our timeline, true and mature combined arms warfare. After the conquest of France comes the real effort - the conquest of Britain.

This time, the active military participation of Russia is required, and timing is critical since Unity planners assume that if they delay more than three months, American reinforcements to Britain and additional naval forces will make an invasion difficult to impossible. The invasion itself is a precisely orchestrated affair, several components of which actually fail. The Italian fleet, supposed to occupy British and French forces in the Mediterranean, does not perform nearly to expectations, and the German air and submarine campaigns before the invasion do not meet with the desired success - loss rates of the submarines are unsustainably high, and a large proportion of the RAF is transferred to bases in the north of England, beyond the operational range of Unity fighters.

Nevertheless, the invasion goes forward. Large elements of the Russian air force, transferred to bases in Germany and France, provide air support, and with the aid of jet fightets, the Unity maintains air superiority sufficient to keep the invasion fleet from being slaughtered by RAF aircraft. The German Navy, with some support from that of Russia, manages to protect the invasion fleet from most of the Royal Navy and USN destroyers and cruisers in the channel region. In the end, twenty divisions worth of intact German forces land, complete with some tank and artillery support (nearly one quarter of the heavy units did not get onto the beaches successfully, due to various errors). Then comes the main difficulty - the Royal Navy battle line sailing south, right into the middle of the landing's supply lines. For over a day, the vast majority of the supplies earmarked to the invasion force were sunk, and several artificial docks which had been set up were destroyed.

The saving grace of the invasion turned out to be the air force, present in sufficient numbers so that despite everything the RAF could throw at it, huge aerial armadas were available to support the invasion force, and to attack the British fleet, in by far the largest aerial offensive in history. (As a reference, the thousand-bomber raids of late in our WW2 are a comparable level of effort). Although the supply situation led to the invasion nearly being stopped, and to being encircled by the defenders, by the end of the second day the beleaguered Royal Navy forces could not stop supplies and reinforcements from flowing both across the English Channel, and from ports in Norway. The area would remain contested for a week, especially with the introduction of reinforcements from the US Atlantic Fleet, but with the addition of a sizeable Russian airlift, the battle became a hard-fought ground war. Lacking sufficient supply to operate enough of their normal fully mechanized forces, often short of ammunition and supplies, the Unity campaign in Britain is its hardest-fought yet, requiring nearly a month to begin a full-scale offensive into central Britain. After that point, and following massive use of gas warfare by both sides, the Unity gains the advantage and victory is mostly a matter of time. Practically everyone and everything of real value that can be evacuated out of Britain eventually is, including over a million refugees and military personnel, as pockets of Allied forces supplied from America by sea hold out for months. The slow campaign, which persists for quite a while after it is clearly unwinnable, results in most of central Britain being reduced to scorched earth by the retreating Allied forces, and in millions of civilian casualties.

In our own timeline, Nazi Germany acting alone was completely unprepared for an invasion of Britain. It had overwhelming superiority on the ground, but it's navy was small (and mostly out of service due to naval fighting in the invasion of Norway), and it's air force was merely closely matched with that of Britain. In this timeline, the Unionists have less qualitative superiority on the ground (especially compared to French armored forces), but with both German and Russian air forces available, they have overwhelming air superiority (better than a 4 to 1 advantage even considering the reinforcements shipped in from America). The German and Russian combined navies are still rather smaller than what they face - a single aircraft carrier and only a handful of battleships in the case of Germany - but they are far superior to that of our own timeline. The Russian Unity fleet of this timeline is bigger than OTL's Kreigsmarine. One reason for this is the aggressive nature of Unity naval strategy - they assumed from the start that they would invade Britain, not blockade it or make peace. Thus emphasis on submarines is less, emphasis on surface ships is greater, and a small but effective fleet of amphibious transports plus a freigher fleet to support it is ready. One of Hitler's main problems was that he wanted, and prepared for, war in Europe but he also got war across the channel and across the Atlantic.

1948 - The Race for the Atomic Bomb

The race for the atomic bomb in this timeline was a true race, one won by the Allies - although unfortunately, they did not know it at the time. Work on the atomic bomb as a weapon first began in Britain and Germany around 1938. The Unity has a bit of an easier time going about it than the Nazis, but both projects still proceed fairly slowly. The Unity starts getting serious about its project, with substantial amounts of funding, in 1941 as war draws near. Unity leaders are still lukewarm about it because it is assumed the war will be over before the scientists' predicted success date of 5 years in the future. At this point Britain's project is still comparatively low-level, and no other Allied government has anything worth speaking of.

In 1944, things change. Britain has been conquered, but at great cost, and the Unity is now embroiled in a long-term struggle against the United States. At this point, various "superweapon" projects become popular in Germany, but there is one project which the Russians and Japanese are interested in cooperating on - the Atomic Bomb. With additional scientists working on the project, and finally a higher priority due to the less immediate nature of the war to Germany, atomic research begins to move ahead. The US government comes to a similar conclusion, and with the aid of expatriate British scientists and everything that could be evacuated from Britain, begins its own crash program (one that is somewhat slower than our Manhattan Project, due to less scientists having escaped from mainland Europe to help, and a higher priority for conventional arms due to the losing situation abroad).

In early 1948, the US test-detonates its first atomic bomb, a plutonium-implosion device. Soon it has three of the weapons, commits to using them in Japan, and history is made (one of the planes carrying a bomb is actually shot down, due to the defensive priority Unity fighters are given following the first attack). The Unity uses its bomb a month later - the absolute moment they have one ready. It is a Uranium implosion device, the only type they can build, and their first fully successful detonation - the first was a partial fizzle, well below expected yield. Basically the American project was at least four months ahead in creating a bomb, leaving the Unity in desperation to catch up, and the Unity was far from mastering plutonium implosion devices - which are easier to refine fuel for, giving the US a substantial advantage in the production of atomic weapons.

If the war continues at this point, it is likely that the US could make significant gains. Its strength is real - fission bombs produced at an average of one every two weeks, deliverable by long range heavy bombers, some of which would soon be able to reach parts of Europe if necessary. The Unity has less bombs, produces perhaps one for every three American bombs, and is not capable of delivering the weapons anywhere in the Americas (they would, in fact, have problems reaching Australia). At this point, however, both sides are somewhat blinded by the fact that the other side possesses the bomb, and are more concerned with what the enemy might do with the bomb, than with what they could do with the bomb. The Americans, in particular, are unaware that Unity long-range missiles cannot carry the bombs, and that the Unity has such an inferior production rate. Both sides make what is, given their knowledge, the sensible choice - agree to a cease fire that preserves the status quo, depriving them of no potential conquests that would not be long and bloody even with the atomic bomb.

1956 - The Rio Accords

In our timeline South America remained something of a backwater, isolated from and often disinterested in superpower struggles. Near the middle of the century, most of the continent is actually under more-or-less democratic governments as in our timeline. In our world, South America falls almost entirely to home-grown authoritarianism, and its position relative to the rest of the world declines for decades. In the world of the Unity, it is obvious to every remaining democratic and not-so-democratic free nation who the real enemy is, and that they are a significant long-term threat. The Unity has just succeeded in bringing the majority of the planet under its control by means of conquest, despite the best efforts of its victims and of the fully-mobilized United States. The long-term potential of the Rio Accords, an agreement which does lead primarily to the South American nations surrendering much of their independance in key areas such as defense and trade, is to prevent the rise of authoritarianism and the relative decline of most of South America in relation to the rest of the world. It is, however, a two-way street with a focus on the long term - the surviving Allied Powers (the US, Canada, and Australia) go to substantial expense investing in and developing the industries and markets of their southern compatriots.