Possible implausibility, the next U.S. President, and the evils of various regimes revealed are all revealed in:
CHAPTER 5: Ambition, Appeasement, Atrocities
In spite of the 1940s being a brief cultural golden age in much of Europe and the West (and not to mention an interesting time to be alive), the rest of the world wasn’t so lucky. It was in this time period that just a few of the foundations for today’s world would be established. It was a time of great turmoil, where Japan, still considered nothing more than a regional power by nations such as Britain and the U.S, dramatically increased its own power and prestige with its conquests in China. Conflict with Western powers was avoided with carefully-crafted strategic activities and obedience to various treaties, and their need for oil was filled by the United States not giving a darn about their exploits so long as their interests were not infringed upon for now.
Romania began a dark era with many pogroms and killings, with sane onlookers that survived the fall of the regime and the Second World War recall the Iron Guard's policies, methods, and actions as “inhuman”, “barbaric”, and even “genocidal”. The deportation processes, attacks, mass killings, mass murders, and numerous other unspeakable acts
[1] that were committed under, and even condoned by, Codreanu and his cronies (including his eventual successor Horia Sima
[2]) were but only rumors in the early 1940s, and were proven true later in the following years by Romanian Jewish refugees, Hungarian minorities that formerly lived in Transylvania, and foreign journalists and spies (which the regime made no distinction between). The fact that it went out did not bother Legionary Romania all that much, but what bothered their neighbors were their open threats of war against the new formal Italian alliance of Italy, Hungary, and Bulgaria, its new purposes now to counter Romanian aggression, among others. Many feared the outbreak of war, but for the moment, aside from the insanity within the National Legionary State of Romania, the situation remained a tense and uneasy peace that would last until the last years of the decade.
Japan had remained below the radar of the most noted political analysts of the time, but their rising power was not to be dismissed, and most historians agree that it shouldn’t have been during this era, as it would eventually be proven in the years during and after World War II. Diplomatic maneuvering and mutually beneficial trade deals between the West and Japan kept war from breaking out between them, and while the United States had their interests in China, they were too focused on recovering from the First Depression to enforce an Open Door Policy, thus allowing Japan to fill this void with their own actions and designs. This wasn’t to say that there was opposition to this, as there were vested business interests in China, but a compromise between them was reached: Japan would not attempt to seize American possessions in the Pacific, and America would cede considerable influence in China. While not necessarily a mutually beneficial compromise, it was ultimately an uncomfortable one that managed to prevent a war that could have proven disastrous for both sides regardless of victor. Thus was much of East Asia ripe for the taking. Siam fell in line and became a close partner of Japan, and the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere truly became a strong force in the Far East. And it would’ve been stronger in the 1940s had hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops not been bogged down in the conflict with the Chinese warlords and communists. In spite of these setbacks, a blood-stained Red Sun was rising, and Japan’s day in it appeared to be one that would never end.
The atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers and officials during this timeframe must also not be overlooked. Since it was mainly the disunited Chinese at war with Japan, most other nation s turned a blind eye to what went on in cities like Nanking
[3] or Foochow
[4], or how those in places like Korea
[5] or the Japanese-controlled cities in China
[6] were being treated. Hardly anybody outside of Japan or various government intelligence agencies would know about Unit 100 or even Unit 731 and what they did
[7] until after the incredibly disastrous end of the Japanese Empire. And the while rumors and stories about the Kempeitai
[8] swirled around in the West and would eventually lead to a new "Yellow Peril" that would see trade relations grow colder between East and West, there was nothing done to mitigate the human rights violations that occurred during the 1940s short of engaging in a global-scale conflict.
At some point or another in modern history, at least one person per generation has asked the following question: “What’s with the Balkans and war all of the time?”
[9] As such, it came as a surprise to many that war did not break out over the end results of 1943’s Milan Conference, where the Italian-Hungarian-Bulgarian alliance, later to be known as the Triumvirate
[10], would arrange for the eventual partitioning of lands from nations across the “Little Entente” of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania
[11]. Italy would demand Dalmatia and much of the Yugoslav coast, Hungary wanted Vojvodina and southern Czechoslovakia, and naturally Bulgaria wanted Dobrudja, Macedonia, and to expand a few kilometers westward into eastern Serbian border regions. The League of Nations, by unfortunate precedent with the Mukden Incident in 1932 and Italy's invasion of Abyssinia in 1936 showed no spine in attempting to prevent conflict. Romania warned the Triumvirate that they and Czechoslovakia would not stand for this if war broke out, and their remilitarization processes began in earnest. Hungary, which by this time had essentially spit on and threw out the Treaty of Trianon, mobilized for a two-front war.
Fortunately for Southern Europe, cooler heads prevailed, at least for a few more years. Mussolini recognized, in a brief and uncommon period of Italian competence in the era, that a multi-front war for itself and its allies would both mean an unmitigated mess and the death of any plans for a new Roman Empire, and that there would be no war, at least not in the mid-1940s. A number of history professors who look back upon this period realize how close the Balkans were to earlier massive bloodshed, and while proven right about how fighting was inevitable at the tail end of the decade, the fact that a follow-up to the Conference took place in Warsaw late in 1944 with all affected nations represented was a step in the right direction.
[12]
In the United States, William Frank Knox found himself elected to the Presidency in 1940, winning against Democratic challenger and Louisiana Senator Huey Pierce Long
[13] in one of the narrowest electoral college results in American history. His agenda of recovery and moderate reform was in a similar vein to that of Roosevelt's, and while he pushed for the United States to involve itself more in foreign affairs and to move from isolationism, this was naturally an unpopular opinion that wouldn’t even be considered by another sitting U.S. President for decades. He never finished his term in office, succumbing to a major heart attack while working at his desk on November 11th, 1943. Vice President and former Governor of Maine Percival Baxter was sworn in that evening, and in the spirit of Roosevelt's "fireside chats" in earlier years pledged to keep many of the social welfare reforms implemented under Roosevelt and Knox intact.
[14] Additions to the New Deal would continue at a snail's pace in Congress, and there wouldn’t be another one until after the tumult of the 1970s. For now, however, many people in the United States were doing pretty darn good, all things considered, some hundreds of thousands even better since they’re not dead somewhere in the Pacific or on the coasts of Europe, and a very select few newly-minted Americans are refugees from Germany, Spain, Romania, and even Japan. Fears of immigrants are as big as the quotas are small, but in the minds of most Americans they aren’t as big of a worry as the economy, or in some circles, even the Reds.
For now, much of the world is settled under a foreboding quiet. Everybody knows that this cannot, and will not, last. Movements for colonial independence, while getting stronger, mean nothing if the resources to quell these calls are plentiful and are not being redirected to a front line. Latin America is, for the most part, strangely uneventful, aside from protest to U.S. colonial interests and vocal support in Brazil to restore democracy after Vargas’ 1937 coup and the establishment of the Brazilian Estado Novo
[15]. And what about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which has, aside from aid to communists in Germany and Spain during their respective Civil Wars, not made any real power moves? How, and when, will they come to fated blows with their neighbors?
One could only wait and see...
[1] They are similar to or even worse than their real-life counterparts.
[2] Yeah, Sima’s arguably worse than Codreanu by deed, but that’s because he’s lived longer in our world. Both will get a fate befitting them and their minions in due time, if that’s any comfort.
[3] This still happens, and without diversions towards fighting the U.S, more events of higher severity like this across China happen, too. The worst part? Hardly anyone that’s outside of the region save for some concerned people without power seems to care. The name is different from today's romanization of Nanjing.
[4] Like what happened in late 1930s Nanjing but three times as worse. History books written in later years would often compare Japanese actions to those of Romania under the Iron Guard. (Correct Romanization is Fuzhou.)
[5] Korea’s annexation and subsequent colonization is a process that predates the point of divergence (PoD). Without World War II, aside from the occasional revolts by some uppity rabble-rousing subjects brave freedom fighters, there is less that is done to stop this process.
[6] It would take me too long to list what cities are essentially Japanese concession ports at this point, but you can safely assume that much of the eastern coast of China is (for the most part) secured for Japanese interests with varying levels of autonomy. On the other hand, Du Yuesheng's smuggling in Shanghai isn’t particularly helpful to the Japanese, either.
[7] These sons of guns. And these rat fiends, too. They’re often compared to, and sometimes considered worse than, inhuman figures like Josef Mengele. Oh, and IOTL, the U.S Government secretly gave these awful blights immunity in exchange for handing over their research after World War II.
[8] It’s not at all difficult to draw comparisons between these folks and others, like Nazi Germany’s Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).
[9] Shameless reference to one of my favorite game mods in the history of ever, as of late 2018.
[10] No relation to its namesake from another one of my favorite game mods, albeit one that so far has not been released.
[11] This alliance with Romania after the abrupt shift in governance is still in place, albeit shaky. I mean, who would willingly want to associate with a nation controlled by individuals that Hitler of all people thought were going too far? (Please don’t answer this question.)
[12] The Warsaw Conference essentially stated that nobody would declare war on each other, and that by 1948 a fair redrawing of borders that suited everybody would take place. At the time, it was quite idealistic, despite the lingering memories of the Great War three decades prior. In hindsight, it was even more so...
[13] Huey Long survived his 1935 assassination attempt in this world, instead taking a bullet to the leg. This, with other factors, kept him from running for President in 1936, but he would walk with a noticeable limp for the rest of his life.
[14] The New Deal analogue here, the Fair Deal, is much more watered down. It’ll be enough to get the U.S. back on track for the time being, but the labor movement will be, by 1950, considerably worse off than OTL.
[15] As OTL, but it’s going to be around for a while longer than 1945.
