Considering many in Europe don't really give a damn about Wallace because of his actions in regards to Communism in general, the Soviets in particular and with Stalin for all intents and purposes. I can see a general European fightback against decolonization in general ITTL.
The Footprint of Mussolini - TL
Considering many in Europe don't really give a damn about Wallace because of his actions in regards to Communism in general, the Soviets in particular and with Stalin for all intents and purposes. I can see a general European fightback against decolonization in general ITTL.
I wonder how much resources the Europeans will have to keep their colonies and combat the Russians. They might be willing to have a process of 'de-colonization' by handing over internal autonomy to a picked group of colonial elites. The newly independent countries would still be tied to Europe by military and trade agreements until the US and others try to break in.
Or decolonization at their conditions so neocolonialism.
Things in Africa will be very interesting. TTL Italy had after all a strong card to play - Libya. From Libya can control a lot of things in the Dark Continent. But, also the AOI - bar Ethiopia could be a good position for Italy to play its games. Eritrea will likely stay in Italy's orbit even if the AOI would collapse, and Somalia will be an helluva lot stable. And unlike OTL, Italy won't feel guilt in sending troops there and here even in case democracy will return. We will have a Franceafrique and also an Italafrica - and is possible both may clash. Why? France would be really lucky to hold Algerian coast till today. Italy have much more favorable ground to defend, less people to keep in check. And besides quitting from Ethiopia will eventually help Italy to keep a greater Eritrea and a greater Somalia in its pocket. Because, Tigray will stay with Eritrea and Ogaden with Somalia. And Ethiopia will have to go for it or keeping high border tensions with those countries... Hence, Somalia and Eritrea will have to keep Italian troops in place.
Meanwhile, Italy can have a chance to become more multi-ethical... More Albanians searching work and arriving but in a more ordered way, mixed blood people from Eritrea and Somalia going to study there, Libyians enlisting in the Italian Army and some becoming generals...
I can already see it now; Gaddafi being very competent general in the Italian Army. 
I can already see it now; Gaddafi being very competent general in the Italian Army.
I can't talk for the guy, was thinking more to people like Haftar at the moment.
OTL Haftar was a dumbass who was outplayed and trashed by Chad. He had plenty of heavy equipment: tanks, APCs, airplanes and nearly three times more soldiers. Chadians defeated him with swarms of Toyota technicals (pickup with heavy machine guns and some anti-tank weapons).
Even now, he launched an offensive without realizing that he would have faced some serious resistence. Still don't know if he will win or not, that's for the future and this forum doesn't linger in the future.
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I mean, I don't see it outside the realm of possibility that Wallace would have recognized the Viet Minh (i.e. the August Revolution), and pressure the British and French from reestablishing control over the region. This well could have extended to Laos (though the situation there was a tad more complicated, French forces already being present) and Cambodia may well have been guaranteed self government in some form (they resisted French reoccupation the least and collapsed quickest).
However I don't see the United Nations being much more than the "stump" that it is today when it comes to decolonization, important speeches taking place that propel or lay the ground for greater decisions made elsewhere, but producing little of substance itself.
However I don't see the United Nations being much more than the "stump" that it is today when it comes to decolonization, important speeches taking place that propel or lay the ground for greater decisions made elsewhere, but producing little of substance itself.
No clue why everyone is getting so excited about a President Patton. It won’t happen.
1) The origin is “Former General Patton”. People took that to be President, as he was no longer General if he was President.
Since then, we have learned that he resigned and all of that stuff.
2) It literally says “feels like the world doesn’t need him anymore”. I feel the author is trying to tell us that he is no longer relevant to the story.
This has been my TED Talk.
1) The origin is “Former General Patton”. People took that to be President, as he was no longer General if he was President.
Since then, we have learned that he resigned and all of that stuff.
2) It literally says “feels like the world doesn’t need him anymore”. I feel the author is trying to tell us that he is no longer relevant to the story.
This has been my TED Talk.
Thanks Ted, you're the best. >_>
Also maybe so, but it doesn't exactly escape the possibility of speculation for Patton, lest the author ends it once and for all and just outright states that Patton is not going to be relevant to the story.
That being said, I'm kinda inclined to agree in a way, I kinda feel the next President could be a McCarthy instead.
Also maybe so, but it doesn't exactly escape the possibility of speculation for Patton, lest the author ends it once and for all and just outright states that Patton is not going to be relevant to the story.
That being said, I'm kinda inclined to agree in a way, I kinda feel the next President could be a McCarthy instead.
The counterargument is that unlike OTL, the western european nation had less need for the Marshall Plan (that was also a gigantic boom for the American economy) as the war not only has been shorter but also lacked the expense of the African front, so the old continent is less spent than OTL
Italy and the Fascist states also made off like bandit, they might have sold weapons to everyone and basically entered the war when it was quite painless for them to win; nobody ever attacked or bombarded their mainland. That definitely help with rebuilding europe.
Et tu?
Hey all! If you wanted war, well now you've got two.
Et tu?
The ultimatum from Stalin on Serbia caused frantic back and forth on all sides in the Roman Alliance. Pavelić was adamant that Serbia had to be dealt with while Bulgaria and Italy both stressed the need for negotiations and caution. This was in part due to the fact both Bulgaria and Italian troops in Austria would be the first to feel the Soviet onslaught while Croatia was relatively safe behind the protective wall of Hungary. Turkey, Portugal and Spain were even more adamant on avoiding war, remembering their being dragged into the last one and not too fondly. After calls between Rome, Moscow and London, an emergency meeting was set up in Bucharest for February 27th. Representatives of the Roman Alliance, France, Britain, the Soviets and Tito’s government were there. Notably, the collaborationist government’s few leading figures who escaped abroad were not even invited.
Mussolini was told right off the bat from Churchill that Britain was not going to join a war to re-impose Fascist control over Serbia, who the majority of Briton’s sympathized with despite Tito’s Communism. Likewise, the central figure of the Anti-Serbian campaign would inevitably be Pavelić, who was loathed in Britain and elsewhere for his genocide against Serbia. Churchill said that if he even breathed support for Pavelić in Parliament, his coalition would collapse and the Labour Party would almost certainly be elected to power, which would be a disaster for Italy. Churchill cautioned, “The British people remember what happened the last time there was some foolish business over Serbians”. De Gaulle voiced similar concerns, saying no one in France would die for Pavelić against Tito. The even more complicating factor was that Pavelić had a death sentence over his head from the French government for his role in the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and the French foreign minister in 1934. Obviously, no help was forthcoming from America. Mussolini was even more desperate by now to avoid a conflict, fearing the Roman Alliance may end up facing the Soviets in isolation, which they could never win.
Negotiations were tense from the offset, but surprisingly avoided the chaos of conferences such as Kiev or Potsdam (though Molotov’s offer of ‘neutral American mediation’ was met with laughter from Ciano). A loose agreement was beginning to be formed. Tito’s position was unassailable, but negotiations began to suggest turning Serbia neutral just like Hungary and Romania. Tito could continue to run the country as he saw fit on the condition that he demilitarized and forsook taking back any territory from the Roman Alliance (suggestions were given that Hungary’s annexations could be returned to sweeten the deal and avoid war). The Soviets were suspicious about this, fearing Serbia could be invaded, given that she had been invaded years before, if in her Yugoslav form. Amazingly, real progress seemed to have been made.
Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to agree. Pavelić was furious with Mussolini for negotiating not only with Communists but with ‘the garbage of humanity’, by which he meant the Serbs. Pavelić had always mistrusted Mussolini, only seeing him as a means an end. He lusted for the Adriatic Coast and hated Italy for having taken it from him, even if he only had a Croatian state due to Mussolini (with Bosnia added for good measure). The last straw was leaving a Communist Serbia on his doorstep. He did not believe that any of the demilitarization pledges were serious enough to stop Tito and was convinced that in time it would lead to Serbia becoming strong enough to take back her old territories. Pavelić personally attended the Bucharest Conference and angrily lashed out at Ciano for Italy’s ‘weakness’ in the face of Communism. When Ciano angrily replied that Pavelić only had to worry about ‘a scattering of sheep farmers with rifles from the Great War’, the Italians, Turks and Bulgarians had to worry about the might of Asia slamming on their heads at full force. At those words, Pavelić left the Conference on March 7th. Ciano thought nothing of it and went to bed soon after. On March 8th, Ciano walked into the main Conference Room with Molotov and Tito glaring in fury. He was baffled why they were suddenly being so undiplomatic … only to be told that Croatia had invaded Serbia that morning.
The Croat-Serbian War was the first international war in Europe to emerge after World War Two. It very nearly caused a Third World War too. Ciano pleaded with Molotov that Croatia’s action was unilateral and that the Roman Alliance would take no collective part – something the Bulgarian ministers enthusiastically agreed to. Molotov angrily accused Italy of orchestrating a delaying action to get Tito out of Serbia so the nation could be attacked while leaderless. After several hours of pleas of innocence, Molotov was ushered out of the room by a Soviet officer and returned ten minutes later. When he returned, he stated that he had come to believe the Italian. In reality, Soviet spies who had overheard Ciano and Pavelić’s argument and how it really was a unilateral action told him. Ciano breathed a sigh of relief, as did fellow representatives of the Roman Alliance.
The next question was what they were going to do about it. Any Soviet declaration of war against Croatia would trigger the Roman Alliance into war, which all parties wanted to avoid. At the same time, Italy refused to invade Croatia themselves by saying it would be diplomatically impossible for them to suddenly attack an ally. Ultimately, it was agreed that both Croatia and Serbia would be allowed to duke it out on their own, unless either country was on the point of obliteration. Covertly, both sides wanted to test their latest technologies and techniques as well. Soviet equipment traversed into Serbia over Hungary for months for this very purpose. Italy was more reluctant to supply Croatia, feeling their Balkan partner didn’t need it. They were also outraged that Croatia risked the total destruction of Europe by their insane invasion of a broken country. Britain France and America announced their neutrality in the conflict, thus averting further headaches.
Pavelić went into the war in a state of giddy excitement. Indeed, his initial invasion had curiously little manpower because he was already planning the troop formations for the victory march in Zagreb. Croat propaganda darkly promised its citizens that ‘there won’t be any Serbs left to start another war’. The initial Ustashe invasion lived up to all its worst reputation, even in its limited scale. The Ustashe bombed refugee camps of Serbs that had been kicked out during the Third Balkan War. These camps had no conceivable military purpose. This could only be described as a war of extermination. The morale in Serbia was low upon news of the Croat advance. Tito’s radio speech to the nation (one so broken and poor that millions had to huddle together to hear the Dictator’s words) told them ‘There will always be a Serbia as long as there are brave men within her!” Serbians rallied to the cause, especially when it became clear this was going to be a solo fight against the Croats. Soviet weaponry poured over the border, giving desperately needed supplies to the desperate people of Serbia.
The first major battle of the Croat-Serbian War was fought at Šabac on March 26th. The Ustashe numbered some fifty thousand men and the Serbs numbered barely a fifth of that (many had already scattered to prepare for a long guerilla war, or defend Belgrade). Yet owing to the sheer arrogance of Croat commanders, the badly outnumbered defenders were able to hold off the Ustashe for four months, inflicting devastating losses upon the invaders. Pavelić, in his rage, ordered every Orthodox Church to be burned to the ground in occupied Serbian territory. The resulting condemnation of Bulgaria (an Orthodox nation) led Mussolini to genuinely fear the Roman Alliance was about to break apart. Ultimately, Bulgaria had to be donated ships from the Regia Marina to stop them from leaving the Alliance. In Serbia, the vandalism now managed to rally even the fanatic Christians in favour of the Communist ruler.
Pavelić ordered his troops to march on Belgrade, but they were so hampered by guerillas and the autumn weather that it took until mid-October before there was any sizeable enough amount of people outside Belgrade to begin an assault. By now, the logistical nightmare of fighting deep in the mountainous region with 100% opposition from locals and a well-supplied enemy had led Pavelić to finally realise what was happening. The choice was clear: take Belgrade or lose the War. With that, he threw every man he had at the Serbian capitol. It was a brutal fight, with Serbian men and women fighting together with an intense desperation not unlike the Jewish refugees of Trieste. The fighting was as brutal as any scene on the Eastern Front in World War Two. The notion of prisoners was forgotten almost immediately. The Ustashe would execute male prisoners almost immediately. Female prisoners were generally raped first and then executed. Likewise, Serbian fighters had no interest in taking Ustashe men alive. As one American journalist commented, ‘it was like seeing what human beings would look like if the whole world were devoid of souls or conscience’. On November 29th, the Croats received the news they had dreaded – they could not capture Belgrade. Pavelić flew into a rage and ordered the Ustashe stood their ground and fought to bleed the Serbians to the last. While it bled out the Serbians, it most certainly hurt the Croats as well. All in all, roughly forty thousand Croats died in the struggle to take Belgrade, with nearly 100,000 Serbs meeting the same fate. Nevertheless, the mood throughout Serbia was one of celebration. Tito decided to turn this to his favour, and planned to push the Croats out of Serbia. Not only that, he started thinking bigger. He made plans for a full invasion of Croatia.
After Serbia blew up in their face, the Fascists anxiously looked towards Greece and were mortified to see the same situation arising there. Prime Minister Ioannis Rallis (who led the puppet government) desperately pleaded with the Roman Alliance to save him from the growing Communist insurrection in the country. Almost everything south of Athens was under the rule of Communist guerillas and gun battles were becoming common between the police and Communists in the streets. The provisional head of the Greek Communist government was set up in Sparta as a propaganda device under Nikos Zachariadis. Markos Vafeiadis led the guerilla forces against the government. Much like Serbia, the collaborationists were extremely unpopular and the Communists had broad support across society, even in the traditionally hostile regions due to their being the most vocal, visible resistance to the Fascists. Communists around the world foresaw a repeat of the Serbian situation.
But this time around, the Fascists were wily. They responded to the situation by sending in troops across the border from Albania and the formerly Greek territories that Bulgaria had annexed on March 16th. The Turks sent their own reinforcements with the Bulgarians and began patrolling the seas alongside the Regia Marina. Unlike the Serbs, the Greek Communists had no consistent supply lines. The closest thing they had to supplies from the Soviets were the long boat rides from the Baltic and an awkward stream of weapons that had to traverse Bulgaria or Italy to get there. A further propaganda coup occurred in the immediate aftermath of the government’s reinforcement. Zachariadis decided that there had to be an immediate assault on Athens to seize it before the Italians arrived. That way, there would be no government left the save. Thus, over Vafeiadis’s objections, the guerilla army was hurriedly forced into conventional warfare. The Italians were overjoyed as this allowed the guerillas to be easily fought back with their airpower. Yet this wasn’t the most damaging event for the guerillas.
The most damaging event for the guerillas was the Athens Pogrom on March 18th. The chaotic invasion had led to troop discipline disappearing. Once they entered the Jewish quarter of Athens (which had expanded greatly following the annexations of Greek territory from Bulgaria), their frustrations were let out. Jews had unfairly been maligned as Pro-Italy owing to Italy’s alignment with Jewish interests. As a result, the entire community was considered to be collaborationist in nature. The Jewish quarter was devastated in a brutal pogrom (ironically one where the locals put up a much more spirited resistance than the government). The main synagogue of Athens had been burned down and half of the Jews of Athens had been rendered homeless. The atrocities against the Jews of Athens would foreshadow the later atrocities committed by Communist governments. As a purely military idea, it was calamitous as it allowed the government more time to organize defenses, not to mention time for the Roman Alliance troops to occupy the key regions of the country. But it was even worse for propaganda purposes. Unlike the Croat-Serbian War, Britain would find herself outright endorsing the Italian action in Greece, mainly citing the pogrom committed against Athens’s Jews as proof of the evil of the guerillas. While it would remain a long slog, Rallis was relieved. His government had survived the worst stage of the Greek Civil War and looked forward to the Italians obliterating Communism from the peninsula for him.
While disaster in Greece had been successfully averted, the situation in Serbia had been a total nightmare. Pavelić’s incompetence and defiance of his generals had led the Croat army to be outclassed by the numerically inferior and undersupplied Serbians. Even worse, there were now reports of unrest in Bosnia because Croats were blamed for starting a war that might very well soon expand into Bosnia. Talks with Pavelić had collapsed – he didn’t even return calls from Mussolini anymore, which particularly irked the Italian. In November, as it became obvious that Pavelić had invited disaster upon his country, a meeting of the Grand Fascist Council was called. Graziani, predictably, advocated supporting the Ustashe to finish the job over Serbia. Ciano and Balbo both agreed with their own conclusion: Pavelić was dangerous and had to be dealt with. This was quite difficult, as Mussolini had no direct power over Pavelić. Even Tomislav II (the nephew of Vittorio Emanuele III) had no constitutional power to kick Pavelić out. What Tomislav did have were connections throughout the Croat establishment. This was what convinced Mussolini to side with Balbo and Ciano.
The most promising candidate was former Chief of the Internal Security Service, Dido Kvaternik. He had extensive influence among the generals and despised Pavelić after having been sent into exile. He had resided in Italian Slovenia when the Nazis had invaded and found himself trapped in Trieste along with hundreds of thousands of Jews at the end of 1943. The courage of the Jewish fighters made this once anti-Semite (though he was half-Jewish) much more amiable to their plight. In later years, he would even speak of pride of his Jewish heritage. There is some suggestion Pavelić explicitly fired him due to his Jewish heritage but none of this can be confirmed. What can be confirmed is that Kvaternik was very much interested by the Italian offer. It was offered that both himself and Timoslav would work together and organize a coup against Pavelić. After the fact, the King’s power would be increased to stop any rogue elements of the Ustashe from taking Croatia on a dangerous path again. Of course, Kvaternik would take control of Croatia for the most part. He agreed to tone down the extent of racist rhetoric coming from Croatia, end the war against Serbia and make Croatia more ‘presentable’ to the wider world. With that, Mussolini began Operation Brutus, named after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
Et tu?
We Brave Few: Europe 1945-1949 by Abraham Ferguson
The ultimatum from Stalin on Serbia caused frantic back and forth on all sides in the Roman Alliance. Pavelić was adamant that Serbia had to be dealt with while Bulgaria and Italy both stressed the need for negotiations and caution. This was in part due to the fact both Bulgaria and Italian troops in Austria would be the first to feel the Soviet onslaught while Croatia was relatively safe behind the protective wall of Hungary. Turkey, Portugal and Spain were even more adamant on avoiding war, remembering their being dragged into the last one and not too fondly. After calls between Rome, Moscow and London, an emergency meeting was set up in Bucharest for February 27th. Representatives of the Roman Alliance, France, Britain, the Soviets and Tito’s government were there. Notably, the collaborationist government’s few leading figures who escaped abroad were not even invited.
Mussolini was told right off the bat from Churchill that Britain was not going to join a war to re-impose Fascist control over Serbia, who the majority of Briton’s sympathized with despite Tito’s Communism. Likewise, the central figure of the Anti-Serbian campaign would inevitably be Pavelić, who was loathed in Britain and elsewhere for his genocide against Serbia. Churchill said that if he even breathed support for Pavelić in Parliament, his coalition would collapse and the Labour Party would almost certainly be elected to power, which would be a disaster for Italy. Churchill cautioned, “The British people remember what happened the last time there was some foolish business over Serbians”. De Gaulle voiced similar concerns, saying no one in France would die for Pavelić against Tito. The even more complicating factor was that Pavelić had a death sentence over his head from the French government for his role in the assassination of King Alexander of Yugoslavia and the French foreign minister in 1934. Obviously, no help was forthcoming from America. Mussolini was even more desperate by now to avoid a conflict, fearing the Roman Alliance may end up facing the Soviets in isolation, which they could never win.
Negotiations were tense from the offset, but surprisingly avoided the chaos of conferences such as Kiev or Potsdam (though Molotov’s offer of ‘neutral American mediation’ was met with laughter from Ciano). A loose agreement was beginning to be formed. Tito’s position was unassailable, but negotiations began to suggest turning Serbia neutral just like Hungary and Romania. Tito could continue to run the country as he saw fit on the condition that he demilitarized and forsook taking back any territory from the Roman Alliance (suggestions were given that Hungary’s annexations could be returned to sweeten the deal and avoid war). The Soviets were suspicious about this, fearing Serbia could be invaded, given that she had been invaded years before, if in her Yugoslav form. Amazingly, real progress seemed to have been made.
Unfortunately, not everyone seemed to agree. Pavelić was furious with Mussolini for negotiating not only with Communists but with ‘the garbage of humanity’, by which he meant the Serbs. Pavelić had always mistrusted Mussolini, only seeing him as a means an end. He lusted for the Adriatic Coast and hated Italy for having taken it from him, even if he only had a Croatian state due to Mussolini (with Bosnia added for good measure). The last straw was leaving a Communist Serbia on his doorstep. He did not believe that any of the demilitarization pledges were serious enough to stop Tito and was convinced that in time it would lead to Serbia becoming strong enough to take back her old territories. Pavelić personally attended the Bucharest Conference and angrily lashed out at Ciano for Italy’s ‘weakness’ in the face of Communism. When Ciano angrily replied that Pavelić only had to worry about ‘a scattering of sheep farmers with rifles from the Great War’, the Italians, Turks and Bulgarians had to worry about the might of Asia slamming on their heads at full force. At those words, Pavelić left the Conference on March 7th. Ciano thought nothing of it and went to bed soon after. On March 8th, Ciano walked into the main Conference Room with Molotov and Tito glaring in fury. He was baffled why they were suddenly being so undiplomatic … only to be told that Croatia had invaded Serbia that morning.
The Making of the Fascist Bloc by Jodie Rutkins
The Croat-Serbian War was the first international war in Europe to emerge after World War Two. It very nearly caused a Third World War too. Ciano pleaded with Molotov that Croatia’s action was unilateral and that the Roman Alliance would take no collective part – something the Bulgarian ministers enthusiastically agreed to. Molotov angrily accused Italy of orchestrating a delaying action to get Tito out of Serbia so the nation could be attacked while leaderless. After several hours of pleas of innocence, Molotov was ushered out of the room by a Soviet officer and returned ten minutes later. When he returned, he stated that he had come to believe the Italian. In reality, Soviet spies who had overheard Ciano and Pavelić’s argument and how it really was a unilateral action told him. Ciano breathed a sigh of relief, as did fellow representatives of the Roman Alliance.
The next question was what they were going to do about it. Any Soviet declaration of war against Croatia would trigger the Roman Alliance into war, which all parties wanted to avoid. At the same time, Italy refused to invade Croatia themselves by saying it would be diplomatically impossible for them to suddenly attack an ally. Ultimately, it was agreed that both Croatia and Serbia would be allowed to duke it out on their own, unless either country was on the point of obliteration. Covertly, both sides wanted to test their latest technologies and techniques as well. Soviet equipment traversed into Serbia over Hungary for months for this very purpose. Italy was more reluctant to supply Croatia, feeling their Balkan partner didn’t need it. They were also outraged that Croatia risked the total destruction of Europe by their insane invasion of a broken country. Britain France and America announced their neutrality in the conflict, thus averting further headaches.
Pavelić went into the war in a state of giddy excitement. Indeed, his initial invasion had curiously little manpower because he was already planning the troop formations for the victory march in Zagreb. Croat propaganda darkly promised its citizens that ‘there won’t be any Serbs left to start another war’. The initial Ustashe invasion lived up to all its worst reputation, even in its limited scale. The Ustashe bombed refugee camps of Serbs that had been kicked out during the Third Balkan War. These camps had no conceivable military purpose. This could only be described as a war of extermination. The morale in Serbia was low upon news of the Croat advance. Tito’s radio speech to the nation (one so broken and poor that millions had to huddle together to hear the Dictator’s words) told them ‘There will always be a Serbia as long as there are brave men within her!” Serbians rallied to the cause, especially when it became clear this was going to be a solo fight against the Croats. Soviet weaponry poured over the border, giving desperately needed supplies to the desperate people of Serbia.
The first major battle of the Croat-Serbian War was fought at Šabac on March 26th. The Ustashe numbered some fifty thousand men and the Serbs numbered barely a fifth of that (many had already scattered to prepare for a long guerilla war, or defend Belgrade). Yet owing to the sheer arrogance of Croat commanders, the badly outnumbered defenders were able to hold off the Ustashe for four months, inflicting devastating losses upon the invaders. Pavelić, in his rage, ordered every Orthodox Church to be burned to the ground in occupied Serbian territory. The resulting condemnation of Bulgaria (an Orthodox nation) led Mussolini to genuinely fear the Roman Alliance was about to break apart. Ultimately, Bulgaria had to be donated ships from the Regia Marina to stop them from leaving the Alliance. In Serbia, the vandalism now managed to rally even the fanatic Christians in favour of the Communist ruler.
Pavelić ordered his troops to march on Belgrade, but they were so hampered by guerillas and the autumn weather that it took until mid-October before there was any sizeable enough amount of people outside Belgrade to begin an assault. By now, the logistical nightmare of fighting deep in the mountainous region with 100% opposition from locals and a well-supplied enemy had led Pavelić to finally realise what was happening. The choice was clear: take Belgrade or lose the War. With that, he threw every man he had at the Serbian capitol. It was a brutal fight, with Serbian men and women fighting together with an intense desperation not unlike the Jewish refugees of Trieste. The fighting was as brutal as any scene on the Eastern Front in World War Two. The notion of prisoners was forgotten almost immediately. The Ustashe would execute male prisoners almost immediately. Female prisoners were generally raped first and then executed. Likewise, Serbian fighters had no interest in taking Ustashe men alive. As one American journalist commented, ‘it was like seeing what human beings would look like if the whole world were devoid of souls or conscience’. On November 29th, the Croats received the news they had dreaded – they could not capture Belgrade. Pavelić flew into a rage and ordered the Ustashe stood their ground and fought to bleed the Serbians to the last. While it bled out the Serbians, it most certainly hurt the Croats as well. All in all, roughly forty thousand Croats died in the struggle to take Belgrade, with nearly 100,000 Serbs meeting the same fate. Nevertheless, the mood throughout Serbia was one of celebration. Tito decided to turn this to his favour, and planned to push the Croats out of Serbia. Not only that, he started thinking bigger. He made plans for a full invasion of Croatia.
Total: Fascist Terror in Italy by Sven Dietrich
After Serbia blew up in their face, the Fascists anxiously looked towards Greece and were mortified to see the same situation arising there. Prime Minister Ioannis Rallis (who led the puppet government) desperately pleaded with the Roman Alliance to save him from the growing Communist insurrection in the country. Almost everything south of Athens was under the rule of Communist guerillas and gun battles were becoming common between the police and Communists in the streets. The provisional head of the Greek Communist government was set up in Sparta as a propaganda device under Nikos Zachariadis. Markos Vafeiadis led the guerilla forces against the government. Much like Serbia, the collaborationists were extremely unpopular and the Communists had broad support across society, even in the traditionally hostile regions due to their being the most vocal, visible resistance to the Fascists. Communists around the world foresaw a repeat of the Serbian situation.
But this time around, the Fascists were wily. They responded to the situation by sending in troops across the border from Albania and the formerly Greek territories that Bulgaria had annexed on March 16th. The Turks sent their own reinforcements with the Bulgarians and began patrolling the seas alongside the Regia Marina. Unlike the Serbs, the Greek Communists had no consistent supply lines. The closest thing they had to supplies from the Soviets were the long boat rides from the Baltic and an awkward stream of weapons that had to traverse Bulgaria or Italy to get there. A further propaganda coup occurred in the immediate aftermath of the government’s reinforcement. Zachariadis decided that there had to be an immediate assault on Athens to seize it before the Italians arrived. That way, there would be no government left the save. Thus, over Vafeiadis’s objections, the guerilla army was hurriedly forced into conventional warfare. The Italians were overjoyed as this allowed the guerillas to be easily fought back with their airpower. Yet this wasn’t the most damaging event for the guerillas.
The most damaging event for the guerillas was the Athens Pogrom on March 18th. The chaotic invasion had led to troop discipline disappearing. Once they entered the Jewish quarter of Athens (which had expanded greatly following the annexations of Greek territory from Bulgaria), their frustrations were let out. Jews had unfairly been maligned as Pro-Italy owing to Italy’s alignment with Jewish interests. As a result, the entire community was considered to be collaborationist in nature. The Jewish quarter was devastated in a brutal pogrom (ironically one where the locals put up a much more spirited resistance than the government). The main synagogue of Athens had been burned down and half of the Jews of Athens had been rendered homeless. The atrocities against the Jews of Athens would foreshadow the later atrocities committed by Communist governments. As a purely military idea, it was calamitous as it allowed the government more time to organize defenses, not to mention time for the Roman Alliance troops to occupy the key regions of the country. But it was even worse for propaganda purposes. Unlike the Croat-Serbian War, Britain would find herself outright endorsing the Italian action in Greece, mainly citing the pogrom committed against Athens’s Jews as proof of the evil of the guerillas. While it would remain a long slog, Rallis was relieved. His government had survived the worst stage of the Greek Civil War and looked forward to the Italians obliterating Communism from the peninsula for him.
Mussolini: The Twentieth Century Man by Joseph Manderlay
While disaster in Greece had been successfully averted, the situation in Serbia had been a total nightmare. Pavelić’s incompetence and defiance of his generals had led the Croat army to be outclassed by the numerically inferior and undersupplied Serbians. Even worse, there were now reports of unrest in Bosnia because Croats were blamed for starting a war that might very well soon expand into Bosnia. Talks with Pavelić had collapsed – he didn’t even return calls from Mussolini anymore, which particularly irked the Italian. In November, as it became obvious that Pavelić had invited disaster upon his country, a meeting of the Grand Fascist Council was called. Graziani, predictably, advocated supporting the Ustashe to finish the job over Serbia. Ciano and Balbo both agreed with their own conclusion: Pavelić was dangerous and had to be dealt with. This was quite difficult, as Mussolini had no direct power over Pavelić. Even Tomislav II (the nephew of Vittorio Emanuele III) had no constitutional power to kick Pavelić out. What Tomislav did have were connections throughout the Croat establishment. This was what convinced Mussolini to side with Balbo and Ciano.
The most promising candidate was former Chief of the Internal Security Service, Dido Kvaternik. He had extensive influence among the generals and despised Pavelić after having been sent into exile. He had resided in Italian Slovenia when the Nazis had invaded and found himself trapped in Trieste along with hundreds of thousands of Jews at the end of 1943. The courage of the Jewish fighters made this once anti-Semite (though he was half-Jewish) much more amiable to their plight. In later years, he would even speak of pride of his Jewish heritage. There is some suggestion Pavelić explicitly fired him due to his Jewish heritage but none of this can be confirmed. What can be confirmed is that Kvaternik was very much interested by the Italian offer. It was offered that both himself and Timoslav would work together and organize a coup against Pavelić. After the fact, the King’s power would be increased to stop any rogue elements of the Ustashe from taking Croatia on a dangerous path again. Of course, Kvaternik would take control of Croatia for the most part. He agreed to tone down the extent of racist rhetoric coming from Croatia, end the war against Serbia and make Croatia more ‘presentable’ to the wider world. With that, Mussolini began Operation Brutus, named after the assassination of Julius Caesar.
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Thomas Wilkins
Banned
Pavelic, you fucking idiot! He's gonna be the Croatian Ngo Dinh Diem by the looks of it.
Let’s all hope and pray that Operation Brutus goes off w/o a hitch.
Also I think even Ngô Đình Diệm would face palm at Pavelić’s arrogant stupidity.
Also I think even Ngô Đình Diệm would face palm at Pavelić’s arrogant stupidity.
Well Greece seems in hand, but it will be a running problem. The locals might be intimidated into line but the Fascist government in Athens will be one upheld by foreign power through the Cold War I expect.
Time to put the Rabid Dog down.
Pavelic has in essence betrayed the RA by trying to drag them into a war like this. So while usually Mussolini removing an allied leader would weaken the Bloc, here it may increase his standing. As the big boss Mussolini is putting the house in order here.
Assuming he succeeds, Pavleic my thwart this coup and try to purge ProItaly members of his state. If he kills King Timoslav Italy might actually invade aligning with elements of the Croatian government and military.
But if things do go according to plan the peace will be tense. Pavelic will get full war blame, and Croatia may end up paying reparations to Serbia. But in addition I think Serbian neutrality will be thrown out with Tito allowed to fully align with Stalin citing the recent war as justification.
So in that scenario Mussolini and Italy get some points for upholding certain standards in the RA; and removed the most troublesome statesman in the alliance. But Tito will be a huge hero appealing across the spectrum globally, and by extension rehabilitate the heroic communist fighter image to a degree in the face of Stalin's tyranny.
Time to put the Rabid Dog down.
Pavelic has in essence betrayed the RA by trying to drag them into a war like this. So while usually Mussolini removing an allied leader would weaken the Bloc, here it may increase his standing. As the big boss Mussolini is putting the house in order here.
Assuming he succeeds, Pavleic my thwart this coup and try to purge ProItaly members of his state. If he kills King Timoslav Italy might actually invade aligning with elements of the Croatian government and military.
But if things do go according to plan the peace will be tense. Pavelic will get full war blame, and Croatia may end up paying reparations to Serbia. But in addition I think Serbian neutrality will be thrown out with Tito allowed to fully align with Stalin citing the recent war as justification.
So in that scenario Mussolini and Italy get some points for upholding certain standards in the RA; and removed the most troublesome statesman in the alliance. But Tito will be a huge hero appealing across the spectrum globally, and by extension rehabilitate the heroic communist fighter image to a degree in the face of Stalin's tyranny.
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That moron Pavelic will probably be considered on a par with the most ardent nazis in this timeline, and another clear indication of how likely just assuming one's enemies are subhuman can bite one in the arse in more ways than one.
On the other hand, the national unity brought about by the ustashe's pointless sadism might lead to Tito being more moderate, restoring and respecting the historic status of the devout orthodox segment of the population, or perhaps incorporating them as a sort of 'christian communism', which might lead to interesting ripples abroad.
Might giving Greece back some of their territories be a way to grant legitimacy to the fascist government? I don't believe Crete had a major Turkish population prior to WWII, for instance. Would Turkey be willing to to hand it over (sans perhaps permanent military bases) in exchange for a nice technological leg-up or somesuch? With Bulgaria incensed by the destruction of orthodox churches in Serbia, they would not be willing to prop up the alliance by giving up any of their conquests. Also, Thessaloniki is an excellent Mediterranean port and definitely nice to have should Bulgaria ever be in a position where they couldn't ship through the dardanelles for whatever reason - I can't see them giving it up without a fight. They might eventually be persuaded to give the Greeks whose lands they occupy decent minority rights though - if nothing else, they are coreligionists.
On the other hand, the national unity brought about by the ustashe's pointless sadism might lead to Tito being more moderate, restoring and respecting the historic status of the devout orthodox segment of the population, or perhaps incorporating them as a sort of 'christian communism', which might lead to interesting ripples abroad.
Might giving Greece back some of their territories be a way to grant legitimacy to the fascist government? I don't believe Crete had a major Turkish population prior to WWII, for instance. Would Turkey be willing to to hand it over (sans perhaps permanent military bases) in exchange for a nice technological leg-up or somesuch? With Bulgaria incensed by the destruction of orthodox churches in Serbia, they would not be willing to prop up the alliance by giving up any of their conquests. Also, Thessaloniki is an excellent Mediterranean port and definitely nice to have should Bulgaria ever be in a position where they couldn't ship through the dardanelles for whatever reason - I can't see them giving it up without a fight. They might eventually be persuaded to give the Greeks whose lands they occupy decent minority rights though - if nothing else, they are coreligionists.