Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

ITTL What would have been Yugoslavia is a collection of small countries that are constantly scheming against one another and acting as proxies for the regional powers, Hungary, Romania, Greece and Turkey.
The situation following the collapse of Austria-Hungary of 1918-19 really needs to be fleshed out. This is my understanding of TTL current borders but an official clarification would be welcome:

- Austria consists of it's OTL territory plus some adjacent areas. It is unlikely that Austria lost any territory to Italy, so South Tyrol is still attached. In a previous post, Austria owning Trieste was mentioned which indicates that Carniola and Istria are most likely as well.
- Czechia (Bohemia and Moravia) are German Crown Lands
- Slovakia probably looks like the rump Slovakia of 1939 after Hungary shaved off the more Hungarian/militarily important parts.
- Ruthenia and Transylvania are most likely part of Hungary. From a military standpoint, Hungary will want to keep the entire Carpathian shield to protect the Hungarian plain, local sentiments be damned.
- Galacia and Lodomeria were most likely merged with the restored Poland. Whether the Ukrainian half is a part of Poland or independent Ukraine after the Soviet War is anyone's guess, but I would bet against it. The area was occupied for 1-2 years by the soviets. Any locals with an opinion one way or the other are dead or deported.
- Croatia is independent with an unknown amount of Bosnia
- Bosnia is most likely fractured with the Serbs and Croats taking a piece.
- Serbia probably looks like its pre Balkan War border, plus some slivers from Bosnia, the Sanjak of Novi-Pazar, and Kosovo
- Kosovo is either independent or part of Albania
- Albania is independent minus northern Epirus which the Greeks took. Whether Valona is still held by the Italians or they were kicked out in 1920 as in our time is unknown.
- Bulgaria is the big winner of the Balkans. Macedonia, western Thrace, and the bits that Serbia and Romania took in the Second Balkan war were all restored by the great war
- Romania gained Bessarabia but lost some of the passes on the Transylvanian border and southern Dobruja, maybe some of central Dobruja (Constanta area) as well.
- Greece, while not on the winning side of the great war, did quite well post war. From previous posts, Eastern Thrace (including Constantinople) and a good chunk of western Anatolia are Greek owned now. How this was accomplished in the face of Bulgarian, Turkish, and Italian opposition is unknown.

EDIT - Added Romania
 
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- Greece, while not on the winning side of the great war, did quite well post war. From previous posts, Eastern Thrace (including Constantinople) and a good chunk of western Anatolia are Greek owned now. How this was accomplished in the face of Bulgarian, Turkish, and Italian opposition is unknown.

The effect of the First World War taking the turn that it did as well as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire being more complete than IOTL plus the Sykes Picot agreement not playing out have to be factored in. In TTL the Greeks remained neutral due to the events of 1917 and the war was over by the end of that year. In 1919 the Greeks invaded the same way they did in OTL except the Turks didn't have the backing of the Soviet Union because of the Polish War and a large portion of the Turkish army was fighting in Southern Turkey against newly formed Kurdistan.
 
The effect of the First World War taking the turn that it did as well as the collapse of the Ottoman Empire being more complete than IOTL plus the Sykes Picot agreement not playing out have to be factored in. In TTL the Greeks remained neutral due to the events of 1917 and the war was over by the end of that year. In 1919 the Greeks invaded the same way they did in OTL except the Turks didn't have the backing of the Soviet Union because of the Polish War and a large portion of the Turkish army was fighting in Southern Turkey against newly formed Kurdistan.

I can get behind this, but I still question Eastern Thrace. Did the Bulgarians retake the border from the First Balkan war and the Greeks get the Constantinople part that the Turks retained? This would make the most sense to me. I cannot see the Bulgarians letting the Greeks take it all. Bear in mind, Greece in this timeline doesn't share a border with Turkey due to western Thrace still being Bulgarian at the start of 1919.
 
It also means the german police will start looking like the police that I remember from my teens. Imagine the the traffic checks I had as an 18 yrs old. Two police cars (30/40 meters apart) 2 officers in cover behind a car. 1 officer asking for your ID, his partner covering him 4/5 meters to his side with a clear line of fire, all armed with MP-5's. LOL you bet I was polite and had no sudden movements.

That is not a police.
 
That is not a police.

I guess it could depend on your definition of Police.
It's not what I would expect from Police on the British mainland, even in London where armed police, (sporting a mix of HK416 and MP7 (I think), for example).

I'll be corrected if, (more likely when), I'm wrong, and not sure now it works ITTL, but OTL, doesn't Germany have normal state police, who in turn have their own SWAT teams, then Federal Police who have GSG9, (although I always thought they were part of the Border Guards)?
So in theory they Policemen at the roadblock would be State SWAT rather than Federal or military, but still "just" Police?

That's probably really badly phrased so any confusion here is my fault.
 
I guess it could depend on your definition of Police.
It's not what I would expect from Police on the British mainland, even in London where armed police, (sporting a mix of HK416 and MP7 (I think), for example).

I'll be corrected if, (more likely when), I'm wrong, and not sure now it works ITTL, but OTL, doesn't Germany have normal state police, who in turn have their own SWAT teams, then Federal Police who have GSG9, (although I always thought they were part of the Border Guards)?
So in theory they Policemen at the roadblock would be State SWAT rather than Federal or military, but still "just" Police?

That's probably really badly phrased so any confusion here is my fault.

Germany has a state police forces that do all the usual police work from traffic stops to murder investigations to SWAT raids (SEKs / MEKs - Special Operational Units / Mobile Operational Units is irc ) and a Federal Police (Bundespolizei) which is responsible for federal tasks like border, train and airport security. GSG9 is a part of the Federal Police. Both are police forces and not military forces.*

*The Federal Police is the successor of the Federal Border Guard which was a para-military unit. It operated as a police force in peace time but was a trained as and supposed to act as light infantry force during a war. The Federal Border Guard was legally a considered a combatant according to the Geneva Convention. After the end of the Cold War the Border Guard transitioned more and more into a more active police role which was then recognized with the new name.
 

ferdi254

Banned
Well I only had three mexican soldiers starting to search my car but all of them looked like 19 and sure as hell were about as nervous as I was... but they had the G3s on automatic fire mode... and were not that good in cotrolling into which direction they pointed...

Wonder who the people behind Mithras are and how he did find so many people to go from scratch to killing as many as possible...
 
I guess it could depend on your definition of Police.
It's not what I would expect from Police on the British mainland, even in London where armed police, (sporting a mix of HK416 and MP7 (I think), for example).

I'll be corrected if, (more likely when), I'm wrong, and not sure now it works ITTL, but OTL, doesn't Germany have normal state police, who in turn have their own SWAT teams, then Federal Police who have GSG9, (although I always thought they were part of the Border Guards)?
So in theory they Policemen at the roadblock would be State SWAT rather than Federal or military, but still "just" Police?

That's probably really badly phrased so any confusion here is my fault.
Problem is that the OTL structure is not really applicable since it was shaped by both the Nazis and the response/prevention against them. So drawing any paralell should be done carefully. German police ITL probably works a lot like OTLs american police, but with a greater reliance on the armed forces for "heavy lifiting". In more detail:
The Empire until the end of the first world war had no "proper" federal police, since in theory every member state of the empire was a bit sovereign. The only exception was border patrol et al. Intresting tidbit here: The first police-woman OTL was employed in 1903.
The Weimar Republic had provisions to "federalise" police, but made no use of it. So basically while you had very good police (you had plenty of reformers, and Berlin founded the first criminal investigative service), they all staid limited in their area.
The Nazis used the above provisions to create various polictical polices which blurred the line bewteen intelligence agency and police. Plus the entire them being the nazis. This caused a huge distrust in any sort of federalised police structure. Which prevented the fromation of an FBI and HRT analogue in the BRD.
The BRD had the Bundeskriminalamt (Criminal police), border police (see post by @Decrian) and the police at the Bundestag (closest thing would be the Secret Service). They were until the olympics in Munich the least militarised police forces on the planet. Today the heavy lifting is done by state police. For riot duties of often see the BePol (Bereitschaftspolizei - reserve police), which is subordinate to the states. Basically, federal does only criminal investigations, borderguards and customs. Administration of beatings and/or violence is a matter of the states. Administration of strong violence is federal again, since the GSG9 is part of the federal police.

OTL the police at the roadblock would be any sort of state police.
ITL the police at the roadblock may be not police at all, but instead paramilitaries (which due to no Nazis never went out of fashion ITL) or police strengthend by reserve forces. Edit: Which in both cases means you get one or two "proper" police inspectors supported by any number of auxiliaries...which is a tradition going back hundreds of years in many countries. OTL you'd only have professionals.
 
Germany has a state police forces that do all the usual police work from traffic stops to murder investigations to SWAT raids (SEKs / MEKs - Special Operational Units / Mobile Operational Units is irc ) and a Federal Police (Bundespolizei) which is responsible for federal tasks like border, train and airport security. GSG9 is a part of the Federal Police. Both are police forces and not military forces.*

*The Federal Police is the successor of the Federal Border Guard which was a para-military unit. It operated as a police force in peace time but was a trained as and supposed to act as light infantry force during a war. The Federal Border Guard was legally a considered a combatant according to the Geneva Convention. After the end of the Cold War the Border Guard transitioned more and more into a more active police role which was then recognized with the new name.

You are right, but the 70's where a very tense time. All the special police forces (Swat etc..) are not yet formed. Also you could never know If you stopped a "normal" citizen or a member of the RAF. To give you an example. I work at the Dutch Customs Service. On 1 november 1978, four dutch custom officers patroled the border in Kerkrade (The border in Kerkrade is in the middle of an street.) The saw somebody from the german side, walking over to the dutch side to meet a woman. They asked for an Id. The man produces a Swiss passport. Because of that he was told to follow them to custom house. As soon this was mentioned both man and women opened fire on the custom officers (27 shots) even when they laid wounded on the street, two where killed.
 
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