In 1938, shortly after the Munich Agreement, Hitler dies in a car accident and somewhat more moderate, or at least more risk averse factions in the Nazi party gain power. Instead of going for an extremely risky war, they try to market the Nazi Germany as a bulwark against Communism.
In the Pacific, Japan is more accommodating to Britain's and France's desires now that they don't have to worry about Germany on the continent. However, USA now has a more aggressive stance against Japan combined with anti-imperial rhetoric, and tensions between them increase during 1940. US embargoes and threatens Japan with a war, and Japan responses with a surprise attack like in OTL, just a year earlier, and war ensues.
USSR, who have been co-operating against Japan with the US, think that this is the time gobble up areas from Japan, and declare a war. However, Germany has a pact with Japan that has a mutual defence clause, and Germany declares war on USSR (who they think they can take on) and USA (who they figure can't effectively affect them).
The Soviets panick, fearing that Poland might side with the Germans, and start a pre-emptive invasion of Poland and the Baltics. Besides the Soviet aggression against Poland, in this timeline Britain and France are worried about US' anti-imperial stance, and they proceed to side with Germany and Japan, against the United States and Soviet Union.
How will this go? Can the Imperial Alliance stand up to the combined industrial might of the Americans and Soviets? Assume that the Dutch and Belgian Empires are quietly siding with the Imperials, but they are not openly participating to the war unless attacked.
Timeline:
-September 1938: The Munich Agreement.
-October 1938: Hitler dies in a traffic accident. Somewhat more moderate factions in the Nazi party gain power.
-November 1938: First Vienna Award, provisioned by the Munich Agreement, happens much as in OTL
-July 1939: As in OTL, Britain recognizes Japanese conquests in China. But USA does not resume trade relations with Japan due to rising anti-imperial sentiment, so Japan is forced to seek closer trade relations with the Imperial powers. Pact of Steel between Germany and Italy does not happen.
-late 1939: USA and Soviet Union send increasing amounts of aid to China, and propose an alliance against Japan to France and Britain now that they are unbothered on the continent. Due to the anti-imperial sentiment, they refuse.
-early 1940: Worried about rising anti-imperial sentiment, France and Britain halt aid to China, and do not allow USA to send aid through their possessions. US sees this as a betrayal, and extends some of the sanctions to cover UK and France.
-late 1940: American and Soviet volunteer troops start to show up in China, and USN is mobilizing their fleets in Pacific. Increasing trade war between the Empires and USA.
-December 1940: Japanese do a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor. This time, they are not as lucky as in OTL, and American losses are only a half of what they were in OTL. Japanese forces still manage to get back mostly unscatched. US declares total trade embargo against France and UK.
-February 1941: USSR declares war against Japan, and starts their offensive on Japanese possessions on Asian continent. Romania folds to Soviet ultimatum, and hands over Bessarabia while promising to stay neutral, but they will hold a grudge towards the Soviets. Increasing mobilization by France and Britain, and fervent debate about what to do. Greece, which is falling to Soviet sphere of influence, is invaded by Italy now that everybody else has more pressing concerns, plus France and UK quietly OK it to ensure that Italy stays friendly to them.
-March 1941: Germany declares war against the USA and Soviet Union, according to the mutual defence clause in their treaty with Japan. Soviet Union panicks, and starts to prepare a pre-emptive invasion of Poland and the Baltics, mainly in fear of them either siding with the Germans.
-April 1941: Soviet offensives against Poland and the Baltics start. France and UK declare war against USSR, and offer alliance to Germany. USA declares war against Britain and France in response.
Except for CalBear, nobody here seems to be paying any attention to the
extreme political unlikeliness of this scenario:
(1) While the US was unhappy about Japan's conduct in China, virtually nobody wanted to go to war or (until well into World War II when Japan occupied French Indochina and threatened the resource-rich Dutch and British colonies in southeast Asia) even risk war with Japan about it. Talking about "the US does not resume trade relations with Japan" in 1939 is rather odd because the US before World War II
never broke off trade relations with Japan--as noted, it kept selling even oil until mid-1941. Moreover, in OTL a major reason for Pearl Harbor is that the Japanese thought that if they seized the British and Dutch colonies, the US would probably go to war with them anyway, so they had better grab the Philippines and cripple the US fleet in Hawaii in anticipation of such a war. In a world where the British, French, and Dutch are at peace and enjoying good or at least tolerable relations with Japan, US sanctions on Japan would be unlikely to go nearly as far and the Japanese would in any event be able to diminish their effect peacefully, through agreements with the west European colonial powers. So the whole idea of a Pearl Harbor-style attack in this vastly different political situation seems extremely implausible. The China issue
by itself is simply not going to lead to such an attack.
You may say you are positing a US administration more hostile to Japan over China than FDR's was. But this ignores the strength of isolationist and anti-war sentiment in the US in the late 1930's. FDR had to take care to avoid being branded as a warmonger even for the limited steps he did take (some of them purely verbal like the "quarantine speech"). The
Panay incident resulted in a cry not for war with Japan or even for sanctions, but for the US to get out of China, and gave a boost to the proposed Ludlow Amendment
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-over-the-panay-sinking.465381/#post-18736166 Even in 1940 when Congress passed the Export Control Act--and remember that it was passed only after Japan had begun to occupy French Indochina--it relied largely on a rationale that "in wartime we can't export strategic goods that may be in short supply." And even then it excluded oil. The asset freeze and oil embargo came much later, at a time when Japan had occupied the rest of French Indochina and as noted was threatening the rest of southeast Asia. In short, in a timeline where there is no war between Germany and the Western Allies, it would be hard for any US administration to take actions that would provoke Japan into war (even if it wanted to, and very few people wanted to). The US sanctioning Britain and France for being friendly to the Japanese seems even more bizarre and politically unthinkable. And nobody advocated sending US troops to China--volunteers or otherwise--to fight the Japanese.
(2) The USSR declares war on Japan?! In OTL they waited until the last minute in World War II when Japan was clearly facing defeat to do this. Sure, they had a war with Germany on their hands in OTL , but it is not as though they could ignore the possibility of such a war in this ATL. The last thing Stalin wanted was a two-front war. Even after the Japanese lost at Khalkhin Gol, Stalin went to considerable lengths to settle the question of borders in a way reasonably favorable to Japan.
(3) Even stranger, Stalin who in OTL went out of his way to avoid "provoking" Germany in 1941 here starts a pre-emptive war with Germany while he is (unlike in OTL) busy fighting Japan!
(4) Even with all the other implausible events somehow happening, it is hard for me to see Germany declaring war on the US just for Japan's sake. In OTL, Hitler did so because he was convinced that the US was already at war with Germany in all but name--and would soon make it official--which would not be the case here. (See my post at
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...didnt-declare-war.431032/page-2#post-16067955 for the evidence that Hitler wanted to declare war on the US before the US declared war on
him.)
(5) Great Britain and France are hardly likely to be as pro-Japanese and anti-US as this scenario has them being. For one thing, Britain has to reckon with anti-Japanese feeling in the Commonwealth, especially Australia. For another, both the UK and France know that Japan has its eyes out for their colonies in southeast Asia, even if in the absence of war it would temporarily leave then alone in return for getting their resources at a "reasonable" price. And for another thing, a lot of people in the UK and France (which I assume continue to be democracies) simply don't want war--certainly not for the sake of Japan whose brutalities in China were as well-publicized in the UK and France as elsewhere. And if Japan actually executes a Pearl Harbor style attack on the US, that is not going to win her much sympathy regardless of the "provocation" Japan claims.
(6) Although this is less absurd than some of the other things in the scenario, I also doubt that the UK and France will go to war with the USSR over Poland. In OTL they went to war with Germany not so much because of Poland itself as because it was the last straw after the Anschluss, Munich, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in violation of Munich, etc. In this ATL I think they will at most want to help Germany with a "benevolent neutrality"--enough to avoid an outright Soviet victory. (A Nazi Germany, even not under Hitler, will still after all be unpalatable as an actual
ally.)
(7) The idea that Congress is going to declare war on Britain and France just for the sake of the Soviet Union is utterly implausible. The USSR was after all not that popular in the US! If its unpopularity was somewhat mitigated after June 1941 in OTL, it was because it was seen as the victim of a brutal genocidal Nazi Germany. In this ATL the USSR will have been the aggressor in Europe--and even her motives against Japan will be seen as cynical. Well, you may say that Congress declared war with them for the sake of China, but as I have already noted there was no sentiment to go to war with Japan for China--let alone to fight the UK and France over it!
Actually, Sealion succeeding and a Nazi-dominated government of the UK declaring war on the US, though highly implausible, is a
less implausible way to get an Anglo-American war than this scenario...
